Gerard Gallant: Two Autographed Cards

Full disclosure: I wasn't entirely certain how I wanted to handle this one, and I edited it until the wee hours of January 24th, more than a week after beginning writing. Gerard Gallant is a very good coach, and I was shocked not only that he was fired earlier today, but even more so that he was replaced this quickly by someone I feel is a lesser coach - former Florida Panthers, New Jersey Devils and San Jose Sharks -bench boss Peter DeBoer, whose primary trait is to get offered stacked lineups and never getting any of them to a championship title.

He's also a very good guy, was always accommodating any time I met him, once signed seven (!) cards for me by mail, and always took his time with Montréal journalists who wanted to interview him.

In terms of coaching credentials, he's definitely in the top-5 of "active" NHL coaches factoring in every head coach of the past three seasons. He started off winning a Junior "A" championship with his hometown Summerside Capitals in 1996-97, then became an assistant in the IHL (Fort Wayne Comets, 1998-99), AHL (Louisville Panthers, 1999-2000) and NHL (Columbus Blue Jackets, 2001-04) before getting handed the reigns of the team and from the middle of the 2003-04 season to a month and a half through the beginning of the 2005-06 season.

When former Detroit Red Wings teammate Steve Yzerman was named Team Canada's GM for the 2007 World Championships - essentially an audition for a future Olympic managerial role - Gallant was added to the coaching staff and helped bring home the gold medal.

After two seasons as an assistant-coach with the New York Islanders, Gallant took on the job as head coach of the LHJMQ's Saint John Sea Dogs, winning two league championships (2010 and 2011), the 2011 Memorial Cup and twice getting named the CHL's Coach Of The Year (2011 and 2012).

Like many coaches from the "Q" before him, he then "graduated" to the Montréal Canadiens organization, spending two seasons as an assistant-coach before obtaining the head coaching position with the Florida Panthers. His team missed the playoffs by 5 points in his first season despite going 38-29-15 but won the division the following season on the strength of a 47-26-9 record despite coaching a team analytics fans saw as massively flawed and way below average in shot differential. Unfortunately, in one of the weirdest moves of my lifetime, GM Dale Tallon was promoted to Team President, his analytics-based assistant Tom Rowe taking his place and getting rid of most of the team's grinders and pretty much its entire blue line. 22 games in, with a winning record of 11-10-1, Rowe dismissed Gallant, leaving him stranded on the side of the road. Rowe flubbed the season completely, the team missed the playoffs altogether and Tallon was brought back to fix things; the Panthers missed the playoffs by a few points last season and are among the better teams in the Atlantic this season.

 Meanwhile, Gallant was then hired by the expansion Vegas Golden Knights, a rag-tag team that built its first line with two Panthers outcasts - Jonathan Marchessault and Reilly Smith - and took them to the Stanley Cup Final in his first year, then showed it wasn't a fluke by having the team make the playoffs again in Year Two last season, getting eliminated in Game 7 of the first round by perhaps the worst call in modern hockey history... by DeBoer's Sharks.

Gallant will definitely find work coaching in the NHL very soon. As the bets coach available, he can wait out the remainder of the season and see what happens with other teams in the off-season; if the Tampa Bay Lightning fail to go far in the playoffs, Jon Cooper's time there will probably come to an end and whoever inherits that roster will not only get the best line-up int he NHL - heck, with an Art Ross, a Rocket Richard, a Norris and a Vezina winner all playing on the same team, those guys would be good enough to contend for an Olympic gold medal - but will likely also have a say in tweaking it in his image for a better shot at a Cup in his first season.

He would likely also be among the top-two picks to coach Yzerman's Wings (with Cooper, whom Yzerman put behind Tampa's bench) if he wanted to go through a hard rebuild and might be the best man to take on a quick and somewhat talented roster like the Habs', if he could improve his French-speaking skills. There's also an expansion team in need of a coach (and a name...) in Seattle, but I wouldn't be interested in joining them if there were other options, myself, what with GM Ron Francis' handling of the Bill Peters/verbal and physical abuse situation when both were with the Carolina Hurricanes; Francis needs a three-year probation to show that he's learned from the situation and can make the correct adult calls in adult situations and not just sweep things under the rug like the Old Guard did for too long. (I repeat that they should have hired Sean Burke or Ron Hextall to run that team anyway).

Here's a card of his from his glory days in Detroit, wearing the Wings' beautiful white (then-home) jersey with the assistant-captain's "A", having just completed seasons of 72, 73, 93 and 80 points, on card #71 from Pro Set's inaugural 1990-91 Series 1 collection:

And here he is wearing the team's classic red (then-away) uniform, again with the "A", on card #402 from Score's 1993-94 Score set:

He signed them both in black sharpie, adding his jersey number (17) at the end. Edit: He was set to coach in the All-Star Game in late January but opted against it after being fired.

Gerard Gallant: 7 Autographed Cards (Part 1)

Another return I got on Friday, although this one didn't take over 2 years. I had sent Montréal Canadiens assistant coach Gerard Gallant a fan letter and these 7 cards (6 is usually the limit I set myself) on February 25th, 2014 and got them all back, signed in blue sharpie, on March 14th, 2014, so 17 days later, in the span of which the Habs went on a week-long California road trip:

Born in Summerville, Prince Edward Island, Gallant played his junior hockey in Québec's LHJMQ and was an offensive juggernaut in the league. His first season, played with the Sherbrooke Castors, saw him put up no less than 102 points in 68 games, leading to his being drafted by the Detroit Red Wings that summer (6th round, 107th overall in 1981), ahead of long-time defenseman Bruce Driver (108th), star defenseman and Stanley Cup winner Steve Smith (111th) and goalie Greg Stefan (128th), among others.

His second season in the ''Q'' was just as good, notching 92 points and 260 penalty minutes in 58 games with Sherbrooke. His third and final season started relatively slowly with the St. Jean Beavers (53 points and 139 penalty minutes in 33 games), compared to how he exploded after a mid-season trade with 26 goals, 75 points and 105 penalty minutes in just 29 games with the Pat Lafontaine-led Verdun Juniors. Plus another 14 goals and 33 points (with 84 penalty minutes!) in 15 playoff games...

After a season and a half of AHL hockey with Detroit's affiliate Adirondack Red Wings, Gallant made the move to the NHL, where he carved his niche for a year and a half before finding a spot on the Wings' top line with Steve Yzerman. He then started a spectacular run of four straight 30-goal seasons (38, 34, 39 and 36 respectively) which also happened to be four consecutive 200+ penalty-minute seasons (216, 242, 230 and 254).

Injuries were a factor in 1990-91 when he only played 49 games (10 goals, 26 points, 111 penalty minutes and a +6 rating), but he was back to his old, rugged self the next two years, with 187 and 188 penalty minutes, respectively. Unfortunately, his offensive statistics started to decline as the three-time point-per-game producer (with a high of 93 points in 1988-89) became a 30-point man for his final two seasons with the team.

After having played for the Wings for 9 seasons and served as an alternate captain for half of them, Gallant signed with the Tampa Bay Lightning as a free agent prior to their sophomore 1993-94 season. He played in 51 games, scoring 4 goals and totaling 13 points, with 76 penalty minutes. 1994-95 was a lock-out season, so he played in just one game without registering on the score sheet, ending his NHL career at 615 games played, 211 goals, 269 assists, 480 points and a staggering 1674 penalty minutes. Just as consistent come playoff time, his record stands at 18-21-39 in 58 post-season games, with 178 penalty minutes.

Here's a look at the cards, first with the Wings' white (then-home) uniform:

Both show him sporting the 'A' on his jersey, the card on the left (from Pro Set's 1992-93 Parkhurst set, French Canadian version, card #269 in the set) showing him watching the play from afar, while the card on the right (from Score's 1990-91 Score, card #180) shows him right by the side of the net, awaiting a pass or a rebound.

And these three show him wearing the Wings' red (then-away) uniform, all of them with the 'A' on his chest as well:

On the left, looking primed to lay a tough hit on an opponent, from Upper Deck's 1990-91 Series 1 (French Canadian version, card #134); in the middle, with the puck in front of him, looking to make a play, seemingly at Toronto's Maple Leaf Gardens, from Pro Set's 1991-92 Series 1 (French Canadian version, card #63); and on the right, battling two San Jose Sharks along the boards and not liking what he sees - or smells - from Score's 1992-93 Score (French Canadian Edition, card #119).

                                    (continued in the following post)

Gerard Gallant: 7 Autographed Cards (Part 2)

                              (continued from the previous post)

And now two cards from Gerard Gallant's days with the Tampa Bay Lightning:

On the left, he is seen sitting on the bench, from Pinnacle Brands' 1993-94 Score (French Canadian edition, card #560, Gold variant); on the right, in a transition play, with a nice view of the Lightning's white (then-home) uniform, from Score's 1993-94 Pinnacle (card #404, French Canadian version).

Are you confused about the branding of the cards? Officially, the manufacturer was Pinnacle Brands, but for their first few years in the hockey market, their lone brand was Score, so they wrote on all cards and packs they were made by Score Inc. They introduced higher-end products in the early 1990s (Pinnacle and Select), which they decided would be best represented as part of a larger umbrella corporation, so they started to write Pinnacle Brands Inc. on their stuff from then on. Except on these sets, where they make it seem that each brands owns the next one; compare the brand at the bottom with the large logo on these cards:

At least it gives us an additional glimpse at his world-class mustache. Back then, Tampa Bay was a team where good veterans went to retire (kind of like the New York Rangers since the new millennium), with Gallant, Denis Savard, Pat Jablonski, Donald Dufresne, Paul Ysebaert, Daren Puppa and Rich Sutter all fading into obscurity after their stints with the team.

After his playing career, Gallant made the transition into coaching with the Columbus Blue Jackets (first as an assistant, then as head coach), then as an assistant with the New York Islanders.

Feeling more like a head coach than an assistant, he went down to the LHJMQ to coach the Saint John Sea Dogs, where he lost in the Finals in his first season and won the league's championship the next two, culminating with the Memorial Cup in 2011-12. His coaching record with Saint John was never below .800, going 53-12 the first year, 58-7 the next and 50-15 in his final season, after which he again agreed to be an assistant - under Michel Therrien with the Habs - which should be the  springboard to his next NHL head coaching job.

I could totally see him with the Carolina Hurricanes or New Jersey Devils...