Jordan Schroeder Autograph Card

The Minnesota Wild hired a lot of home-grown players who hadn't panned out with the teams that drafted them this summer, and Jordan Schroeder is the latest to have been called up, what with getting credited with 11 points in his first 12 games with the AHL's struggling Iowa Wild.

A first round pick of the Vancouver Canucks - 22nd overall in 2009, ahead of Simon Després (30th), Ryan O'Reilly (33rd), Alex Chiasson (38th), Jakob Silfverberg (39th), Jeremy Morin (45th), Robin Lehner (46th), Brandon Pirri (59th), Tomas Tatar (60th), David Savard (94th), Gabriel Bourque (132nd), and Gabriel Dumont (139th) - Schroeder spent the end of last season in John Tortorella's doghouse; one would think after both the coach and GM were fired, players would get a chance to redeem themselves, but he was let go instead.

The Wild pounced on the former University of Minnesota Gophers star in mid-July, signing him to a two-year, two-way contract. Like them, I jumped on this 2013-14 SP Authentic card (#280 of the Autographed batch of Future Watch sub-set cards) by Upper Deck:

It is signed on-card in thin blue sharpie, with his jersey number tagged at the end (45), and is numbered 771/999. It shows him wearing the Canucks' current white (away) uniform; I traded for it (and a couple of LHJMQ and OHL jersey cards, including this one of Anthony Duclair) by giving away a few WHL and LHJMQ jersey cards.

Schroeder is a very smart and determined small-stature player (5'8'' and 175 pounds) who feels and thinks the game as well as any third liner in the NHL, but who plays best with second-liners. His vision allows him to set his wingers up for beautiful, almost-easy goals that take the defense by surprise.

Sure, he has yet to translate his skill-set to the NHL level thus far (6 goals, 9 assists and 15 points in 57 games), but perhaps playing in a system where blocking shots isn't a priority over scoring goals will be good for his development.