Scottie Upshall Jersey Card

And I'm back, after almost a week in the Las Vegas region (minus a day in the Arizona winter where I caught bronchitis)!

To start things off on a light note, I decided to feature a hard-working player who changes teams often, Scottie Upshall, the Nashville Predators' first round pick (6th overall) in 2002. He may not have become a 40-goal man like Alexander Semin (13th) or a Conn Smythe winner like Cam Ward (25th) or Duncan Keith (54th), but he's appeared in nearly 600 games and consistently puts up some 30 points on the board while adhering to a team concept, playing a physical game that remains within the boundaries of acceptable plays most of the time - and such physical play may have been even more important prior to the 2005 crackdown on obstruction.

He was one of three players to sign an actual contract after coming into the St. Louis Blues' training camp on a PTO this year, with Scott Gomez and Martin Havlat.

Here he is in the Preds' pre-Reebok-stripe yellow uniform, from Upper Deck's 2005-06 Series 1 set (card #J-SU of the UD Game Jersey sub-set):

It contains a white game-worn jersey swatch.