Nathan Horton Dual Swatch Card

The third overall pick of the 2003 draft, Nathan Horton, ahead of Thomas Vanek (5th), Milan Michalek (6th), Ryan Suter (7th), Braydon Coburn (8th), Dion Phaneuf (9th), Jeff Carter (11th), Dustin Brown (13th), Brent Seabrook (14th), Zach Parise (17th), Ryan Getzlaf (19th), Ryan Kesler (23rd), Mike Richards (24th), Corey Perry (28th), Loui Eriksson (33rd), Patrice Bergeron (45th), Shea Weber (49th), David Backes (62nd), Jimmy Howard (64th) and Dustin Byfuglien (245th). All of them winners of medals and/or Stanley Cups. Except Vanek, but I'm keeping my fingers crossed...

Best draft ever? Possibly. Though you kind of also have to wonder where the Florida Panthers would have gone had they picked anyone else. Don't get me wrong, he's a fine addition to a team, and when the Boston Bruins won the Stanley Cup in 2010, he had a role on that team, just a supporting one, not a leading role. Everybody else on that list is a franchise cornerstone (though you can argue against Michalek).

He has scored 20 goals or more 6 times in 10 seasons, but scored over 30 only once (31, in 2006-07), and his personal best in points is 62, though he does have 15 goals and 36 points in 43 playoff games, spread over merely two Bruins Cup runs.

It was widely reported that he signed with the Columbus Blue Jackets last summer because he didn't want to play in a large, hockey-centric market; funny how a man who married a Playboy Playmate (Tammy Plante, grand-daughter of Hall Of Famer Jacques Plante) is seeking relative anonymity...

In any event, here is a card from his days with the Panthers:

It's from Upper Deck's 2008-09 Trilogy set (card # 2W-NH of the Two-Way Threads insert sub-set) featuring two white game-used swatches but showing him wearing both the white (away) and black (home) uniforms on the card, which makes it stand out, in my opinion.