Allen York Autograph Card

Watching the New York Islanders' poor goaltending against the Montréal Canadiens over five periods in back-to-back games so far, I decided it was the right time to feature Allen York, the goalie the Columbus Blue Jackets chose with the 158th pick in 2007.

Don't get me wrong, I was a goalie myself, and just getting drafted is a much bigger accomplishment than I will ever have between the pipes, let alone playing 11 NHL games and having a positive record at 5-3-2 and a .920 save percentage with the Jackets in 2011-12.

But since last year, his star has fallen off a bit, his save percentage sitting below .900 in both the AHL and ECHL; his goals-against average of 4.00 with the Syracuse Crunch (AHL) and 5.60 with the Greenville Swamp Rabbits (ECHL) are disastrous this season.

In 2013-14, he not only played for six different teams, but four (Syracuse, Texas Stars, Charlotte Checkers and Rockford IceHogs) in the AHL alone. All told, since 2010-11, he has played for 12 teams in 4 leagues, in addition to Team Canada at the 2013-14 Spengler Cup (with a 3.57 GAA and .867 save % in 3 games).

But, hey, the Crunch re-signed him this summer, and (Syracuse GM and Tampa Bay Lightning assistant-GM) Julien BriseBois and (Bolts GM) Steve Yzerman probably know what they're doing, seeing as the parent club probably has the best goaltending depth in the world with Vezina candidate Ben Bishop, promising incumbent Andrei Vasilevskiy, and Latvian wunderkind Kristers Gudlevskis.

And sometimes it's those long shots that fare the best against strong offenses.

So here he is, wearing Columbus' beautiful alternate uniform, from Panini's 2013-14 Prizm set (card #A-AY of the silver variant), featuring a blue-sharpied on-sticker autograph:

The scan really doesn't do this card justice; it's a really impressive piece of foil and cardboard.