Adam Erne Autographed Card

In the next few hours, many free-agents-to-be will switch teams, going from pretenders to contenders as teams try to stack up to face the top teams in their divisions. With Kevin Shattenkirk off to the Washington Capitals and Ben Bishop now with the Los Angeles Kings, the top two available players are currently off the market, but many more are left.

Speaking of Bishop, the Tampa Bay Lightning have also sent Brian Boyle to the Toronto Maple Leafs, meaning they may have decided to forget about their dwindling playoff hopes and instead focus on next season, meaning they will either make room for their prospects right away or use one of them to acquire players who have some term remaining on their contracts, such as the Colorado Avalanche's Matt Duchene and Gabriel Landeskog. Should they go that route, power forward Adam Erne might be one player who'd go the other way, seeing as he has yet to make a dent on the score sheet in 5 NHL games this season, but has 14 goals and 13 assists for 27 points in 39 AHL games with the Syracuse Crunch so far.

The American youngster was an alternate captain with the Québec Remparts team that lost in the 2015 Memorial Cup Final against the Kelowna Rockets, winning the LHJMQ's playoff MVP award in the process.

He reminds me of Keith Tkachuk, a speedy, super-strong winger with a knack for finding the hole to score through. I expect him to be a force within three years.

Here he is wearing the Remparts' white uniform on card #246 from In The Game's 2011-12 Heroes And Prospects set and CHL Rookie sub-set:

He signed it in thin blue sharpie in 2015; the signature has since faded a bit.