Daniel Brière Swatch Card

It's official; Daniel Brière has now officially announced his retirement. If you understand French at all, I urge you to read the piece he wrote to announce it to his hometown newspaper Le Droit, it's honest to the bone.

If you don't, here the gist of it: though his last season with the Colorado Avalanche didn't go as planned (8 goals, 4 assists, 12 points in 57 games, used sparsely on a team that failed to make the playoffs), it was more the fact that he was away from his kids who stayed behind in Philadelphia that took its toll and weighed the most on his decision to retire, with 307 goals, 389 assists and 696 points in 973 regular-season games and another 53 goals, 63 assists and 116 points in 124 playoff games, holding the Philadelphia Flyers' record for most points in a single postseason (30, in their 2010 failed Stanley Cup run) and playoff-leading 8 goals in 2011-12.

He ranks in the top-10 in Flyers history for career goals and points, captained the Buffalo Sabres (and ending a rotation of the title in the process), and even with his lowly statistics with the Avs last year still got some Lady Byng consideration along the way.

I would have liked for him to get a better shot with the Montréal Canadiens when he signed here as a free agent two summers ago, more ice time with better players, not being confined to the fourth line, but Michel Therrien did give him some chances that he couldn't take advantage of before going back to using players he knew better and knew what to expect from.

And so my only card of his sporting the Habs' uniform is this 2013-14 Titanium card from Panini, #GG-DBR of the Game-Worn Gear sub-set:

While it contains a white game-used piece of material, he is pictured wearing the team's classic red (now-home) uniform.