Derek Roy Swatch Card

The season started out ok for Derek Roy, as he recorded an assist in his first game with the Nashville Predators. The former Buffalo Sabres captain looks poised to produce at the same rate as he had with the Sabres and Dallas Stars (0.75 points per game), rather than with the Vancouver Canucks and St. Louis Blues (0.5).

When a team's general manager says his $1M contract offer is your ''last chance at getting top-6 ice time'', like David Poile did in July, one must feel at least some amount of pressure. Playing with Colin Wilson and Craig Smith gives the diminutive and skillful Roy (5'9'', 184 pounds) a playmaker and a shooter to manage and match his own skill set with, and it could very well lead to great things for him personally.

For a guy who had four straight 20-goal seasons (with a peak of 32 in 2007-08) and four straight 60-point seasons (peaking at 81 the same year), getting back into point-producing mode after a sub-par 9-28-37 season in the defensively-minded Blues' system will be a relief.

He has two silver medals playing for Team Canada internationally, one at the World Juniors, and one at the World Championships. At 31 years of age, it would require quite the rejuvenation (coupled with an early playoff exit) for him to be able to represent his country again in the future.

During his time in Buffalo, it seems like the team was changing uniforms on a yearly basis; the one depicted on this card is a decent one - except for the logo/lettering - inspired by their original 1970s/1980s garbs:

The card is from Panini's 2011-12 Certified set (card #20 of the Fabric Of The Game sub-set, numbered 74/399), and features a seemingly black swatch (at least in person), which would mean it's from the team's turn-of-the-millennium away uniform.