Brandon Dubinsky Jersey And Stick Card

Looks like Brandon Dubinsky has earned himself a nice payday: he signed a 6-year, $35.1M contract extension earlier today with an annual cap hit of $5.85M. Sure, that's a lot of money for a guy whose highest points total (54) was in 2010-11, but let's not forget the cap went up to just over $69M for the upcoming season and should increase by a minimum of 2.5 per year for the next five or six, meaning his cap hit in percentage will have decreased a lot when his contract comes to an end in 2021.

And while the two-time 20-goal scorer who was the 60th overall pick of the 2004 draft via the New York Rangers may not be a offensive dynamo, he was my choice to be the next captain of the Columbus Blue Jackets last year. His leadership qualities are obvious, and he's more productive come playoff time than in the regular season - his 23 points in 37 games are a decent average against better teams, and his 6 points in 6 games against the Pittsburgh Penguins while contributing to annoy Sidney Crosby two months ago were also impressive.

He knows when to step up his game, as can be attested by his career-high 10 hits in a single game occurring during a Winter Classic (2012, against the Philadelphia Flyers); he was also the MVP of the YoungStars game in 2008 and recorded a hat trick at the World Championships suiting up for Team USA.

I alluded to this card last month, which I got in a trade for a dozen (mostly common) Score Hot Rookies cards (and some extras); it's from Panini's 2011-12 Luxury Suite set (card #15), featuring a game-worn white jersey swatch with a piece of game-used stick on which you can decipher the bottom of the 'R' from the Bauer logo on top: