Martin Gerber Jersey Card

Martin Gerber was a mainstay in nets for Team Switzerland during the 00s, appearing in two Olympic Games (2002 and 2006) and no less than eight World Championships.

He played his best game ever in what is widely considered the crowning achievement of Swiss hockey, a 49-save shutout of Team Canada at the 2006 Games. The only other NHLers on the Swiss team were captain Mark Streit and backup goalie David Aebischer, while Canada had a stacked roster (Martin Brodeur, Joe Sakic, Rob Blake, Chris Pronger, Wade Redden, Todd Bertuzzi, Shane Doan, Dany Heatley, Jarome Iginla, Vincent Lecavalier, Rick Nash, Brad Richards, Ryan Smyth, Martin St. Louis and Joe Thornton, among others), yet, that result made it so that Switzerland finished sixth and Canada seventh.

In the NHL, however, Gerber couldn't make his way into anything more than a backup, be it with the Anaheim Mighty Ducks, Ottawa Senators, Toronto Maple Leafs and Edmonton Oilers. Oh, there was that 60-game season with the Carolina Hurricanes in 2005-06, but he lost his job to rookie Cam Ward four games into the first round while Ward took the team to the Stanley Cup.

He also had a decent run with the Sens, one during which he started out with an all-black mask while his "real" one was getting painted, but he didn't want to risk cursing his season with bad luck, so he stuck with the "Darth Gerber" look all year, which is immortalized on card #GJ2-MG from Upper Deck's 2008-09 Series 2 set and UD Game Jersey sub-set:

It features a red game-worn jersey swatch that could either be from his days in Ottawa or in Carolina.