Vincent Trocheck Autographed Card

Former Saginaw Spirit captain Vincent Trocheck is fast becoming a clutch player on winning teams - not unlike a certain Mike Richards - and he's also leaving his mark on the stacked and surging Florida Panthers, having been named one of the NHL's Three Stars for this past week on the strength of six points (3 goals and 3 assists) in 3 games, capping off a five-game point streak.

The Pittsburgh-born 22-year-old right-shooting center has already won World Juniors gold with Team USA in 2013, producing 6 points in 7 games in Ufa including two points in the championship game against Team Sweden.

Though he was a top producer in Juniors, making the OHL All-Star Team and all, I think Gerard Gallant's plan (with Aleksander Barkov, Jonathan Huberdeau and Nick Bjugstad who can center the top two lines) is to transform Trocheck into a two-way center in the same vein as Patrice Bergeron, then increase his ice time as he gets more and more reliable without the puck.

He's smart and a hard worker, like Bergeron, so that could end up an ideal spot for him - and realistic.

Here's a card he signed in black sharpie (with his number, 89,tagged at the end) roughly a year ago, I forget if it was after a game versus the Montréal Canadiens or Ottawa Senators, as they were back-to-back and I was in both cities at the time:

It's card #80 from In The Game's 2012-13 Heroes And Prospects set, showing him wearing the Spirit's beautiful blue uniform - with the captain's "C" clearly visible.