Jason Spezza Jersey Card

Obviously, the biggest trade this off-season was the one that sent Jason Spezza from the Ottawa Senators to the Dallas Stars, giving Dallas two current-day #1 centers. Playing second fiddle to rising star Tyler Seguin puts Spezza out of contention for the 90-point mark he reached twice and approached two other times (including as recently as 2011-12 where his 34 goals, 50 assists and 4th-in-the-NHL 84 points got him to finish 6th in Hart voting), but 75 points seems totally feasible.

He will likely be feeding his masterful passes to Ales Hemsky, who had 17 points in 20 games playing with Spezza in Ottawa to finish out last season. Erik Cole or Antoine Roussel could complete their line on the left side, or Shawn Horcoff (a former teammate of Hemsky's with the Edmonton Oilers) could be moved from center to wing to accomodate.

As it stands, the Stars' line-up on paper is the best they've had since their days of contending for Stanley Cups and Presidents' Trophies, by far.

And whatever your opinion of Spezza might be, as it stands, he is a point-per-game player both in the regular season (587 in 586 games) and the playoffs (52 in 56). He also has 18 points in his last 16 games playing for Team Canada at the World Championships; his collection of IIHF medals is vast, with one gold (2012 Spengler Cup), three silver (2002 World Juniors, and 2008 and 2009 Worlds), and two bronze (2000 and 2001 World Juniors).

I purchased the following card of his on Ebay earlier this summer because I didn't yet have one of him in the Sens' classic black uniform; it's from Upper Deck's 2006-07 Sweet Spot set, and is #SS-SP of the Sweet Stitches sub-set, numbered #156/2000, and the black swatch matches the jersey in the picture: