Seth Jones Jersey Card

The Seth Jones trade that sent him from the Nashville Predators to the Columbus Blue Jackets in exchange for Ryan Johansen really got the ball rolling this year as far as pre-deadline moves. It was a "hockey trade", one that was immediately good for both teams, with Nashville sacrificing one of the best young defenders in the game to acquire potentially the cornerstone of their offense for the next decade.

However, Johansen had already proven to be difficult when it came to how he perceived himself to be worth in terms of salary demands and contract negotiations, while Jones, who for a long time was viewed as the top prospect in his draft class and unexpectedly fell to #4 as three teams decided they'd rather fill offensive needs than go through the growing pains that usually come with young defensemen making their way into the NHL, has been a team player from day one.

First-overall pick Nathan MacKinnon won the Calder as the best rookie in 2013-14, while Jones finished 11th in voting, behind other defensemen Torey Krug (4th), Olli Maata (5th), Jacob Trouba (6th), and Hampus Lindholm (7th).

So far in 2015-16, though, he's a +2 on the Jackets' blue line (and a -3 on the year, considering he was a -5 with the Preds), and while he's yet to score a goal in Columbus, he's got 19 points in 55 games on the season. He now plays over 24 minutes per game under head coach John Tortorella, who can be credited with helping Ryan McDonagh reach his full potential with the New York Rangers.

Here is my first "pull" of that 2013 draft class (save for the MacKinnon Young Guns card I traded as soon as I got it), a Jones jersey card featuring a nice dark blue game-worn jersey swatch, from Upper Deck's 2015-16 Series 1 set (and UD Game Jersey subset), card #GJ-SJ in the series:

It shows him wearing the Predators' white uniform, with all that useless blue piping and misplaced and disparate golden patches. I really miss their alternate (blue) jersey from a few years ago, which they should have kept as their home uniforms, and I wouldn't mind their yellow/gold current one as much if it was their road jersey, i.e. if they didn't wear it against teams playing in white.

Jones will look better in blue anyway.