Jean-Gabriel Pageau Autographed Card

There were three heroes for the Ottawa Senators tonight, as they beat the Montréal Canadiens in overtime at the Bell Centre - and I got two of them to sign for me tonight. (And I still have two cards I haven't posted from the other one from last year's playoffs in the pipeline).

It was hard to decide who I should feature first, but I decided to go with the player who scored the Sens' first goal of the evening on a shorthanded breakaway, Jean-Gabriel Pageau.

Pageau, who will turn 23 next week, is currently in his first full-time NHL season, but if the Sens played the Habs more often, he'd already be a 50-point player despite playing on Ottawa's third line more often than not. He already has 6 points in 8 regular-season career games against Montréal - including an identical shorthanded goal less than a month ago - and 11 points in 18 games factoring in the playoffs (including a hat trick).

He reached the point-per-game level in both the LHJMQ and AHL, so it's safe to predict he will start hitting the 40-to-60-point soon enough in the NHL as well. As it stands, though, he's a penalty-killing machine who hopes to become the next Daniel Brière.

Here he is with the Gatineau Olympiques, from In The Game's 2011-12 Heroes And Prospects set (card #49 in the collection), which he signed in (dying) blue sharpie:

The Sens are in good hands with Kyle Turris, Mika Zibanejad and Pageau at center. And I'm glad to officially start a player collection of his.