Marc-André Gragnani Autograph Card

Timely posts: it's what I do.

Last night, the Buffalo Sabres made a step towards the playoffs by beating the Carolina Hurricanes 2-1 on an overtime goal by Marc-André Gragnani. The Montréal native was in the third game of his recent stint with the Sabres; he was also in the NHL for 3 games in late January, but spent the rest of the season with the Sabres' AHL affiliate Portland Pirates.

The Sabres' third round pick in 2005 (87th overall), he had played his junior hockey with the P.E.I. Rocket of the QJMHL. In his last two seasons there, the defenseman averaged more than a point per game. He holds the Pirates' records for assists and points by a defenseman in a single season.

This minuscule card is from Upper Deck's 2008-09 Champ's set (card #CS-MG), and is of the Mini Signatures sub-set. This series is pretty much Upper Deck's ''hockey answer'' to Topps' Allen & Ginter baseball set, cards that have an old-school feel, with generally absent countours and where the image looks like a painting or a drawing.

UD's Champ's brand is a nod to the Champ's Cigarette Company of Canada, which produced a hockey card set in 1924-25; those cards were smaller than the regular format, because they had to fit inside a pack of smokes. In homage, UD not only made this set a 200-card fare of its regular-sized cards but also a 480-card of mini cards; where they went nuts is that the set of mini cards features 192 base player cards, 95 short-run rookie cards, a bunch of cards featuring athletes from other sports in what is labeled the ''Hall Of Legends'' sub-set, as well as roughly 200 animal cards and 14 fossils.

And that wasn't a metaphor. Check the Jaguar out here. That's way too much 'National Geographic' for my taste. Might as well have stuck with the original product and included cards about cigarette brands, or even actual tobacco instead.