Flyers Preview: Bob Froese Autographed Card

This will likely be the preface to all of this year's Season Preview posts: 2020 is a different beast and requires adaptability; in my case, it means the joint posts with my "main/personal" blog will not be in the "player here/analysis there" format but rather the entire scope of the analysis will take place here and the player will have some sort of direct connection to what's written. Caveats: at this point, despite the season being set to start in Mid-January, several impact players haven't found a team yet and quite a few teams are currently above the salary cap, which means there is much maneuvering left to do.

After slowly building themselves up to get to this point, the Philadelphia Flyers have finally reached "Stanley Cup contender" status and merely require tweaks for a run each season; technically, this summer, they replaced second-pair defenseman Matt Niskanen - who retired - with Erik Gustafsson, and they could make a surprise run at Zdeno Chara who would fit right in going from the Big Bad Bruins to the Broad Street Bullies, but apart from that they only lost depth players (Nate Thompson, Tyler Pitlick and Derek Grant) who can be replaced at the trade deadline.

And while I feel that the team has technically taken steps back in each of the off-seasons since GM Ron Hextall - who built this impressive lineup from the ground up save for second-line center Kevin Hayes - was axed and replaced with Chuck Fletcher, it remains a team that's so deep it can afford to lose a piece per year and still remain in the mix.

What makes their odds look good:
Captain Claude Giroux is no longer the got-go buy for offense: that's now Sean Couturier and Travis Konecny's jobs, and Giroux can "coast" on 0.75 points per game without the pressure of facing the opposition's top players all the time, although he often joins the two young stars when he's not sharing the ice with his old compadre Jakub Voracek. James Van Riemsdyk is still good for 25-30 prorated goals (he had 21 in 66 games last year and some fans were still dissatisfied!), Scott Laughton looks solid in the middle of the lineup, and budding youngs stars Joel Farabee, Oskar Lindblom, Morgan Frost and Cameron York will also fight for some serious ice time, so even if Nolan Patrick isn't ready to come back from his concussion issues, it won't necessarily harm the team.

The defense is solid with the likes of Ivan Provorov, Travis Sanheim and Philippe Myers, so much so that once-highly-touted prospects like Samuel Morin and Robert Hagg may never get a true shot at making the regular roster.

Question marks:
None, really. If Fletcher can stop subtracting talent and adding to the salary cap, this team will be a yearly tweak from contending for the next decade. Acquiring Justin Braun on defense looks like a smart move right now, we'll just have to see how the deal looks long-term.

Outlook:
The Washington Capitals have been winning their division in the regular season for over a decade at this point, and they now have serious competition. Look for the two teams to exchange the lead all season long.

Prediction:
First in the Metropolitan/East Division.

Star goalie Carter Hart is not immune to suffering a setback in his progression, but not having the Philly crowd around will certainly help ease a lot of the pressure. After all, playing net in the City of Brotherly Love is a near-guarantee to fail; apart from Bernie Parent who retired due to injury and Pelle Lindbergh who died in a car crash, even Vezina and Conn Smythe winners and nominees have been run out of town, and that includes Hextall, but also Sean Burke, Sergei Bobrovsky and Ilya Bryzgalov.

One goalie who lost his job to both Lindbergh and Hextall yet still won the Jennings, was a Second Team All-Star and a Vezina runner-up in-between is Bob Froese, but a lack of patience with his playoff perfromances saw him get traded to the New York Rangers after Hextall came along. He was part of a formidable tandem with John Vanbiesbrouck until he retired to help groom their successor, Mike Richter, as the team's goaltending coach.

After a short stint in player development for the New York Islanders in the mid-1990s, he retired from the game permanently to become an ordained minister, a position he held until last year.

This is what he looked like wearing the Flyers' orange (away) uniform in the 1980s:

It's a picture I've been looking at regularly for the past 35 years, although I had the O-Pee-Chee version as a child and this is card #55 from Topps' 1986-87 Topps collection. I bought it on Ebay for $5. It seems every time I lay my eyes on the card, I see new details emerge, like the thin orange stripe on the sleeve, I'm not sure I had noticed it before today. What weird patterns everywhere on this jersey from my youth, I love it!

Charlie Huddy: 7 Autographed Items (Part 1)

Oh, what a return today!

One of only seven members of all five Edmonton Oilers Stanley Cup-winning teams, Charlie Huddy was a key player on all those teams, counted on to support Paul Coffey as a point-producing defender, but also assist Kevin Lowe in making sure the opposition didn't score against them, which explains his ridiculous plus/minus differentials (consecutive seasons of +62, +50 and +50 are particularly impressive).

Like many of the Oilers' stars, he eventually made his way towards Wayne Gretzky with the Los Angeles Kings, and was especially noteworthy in their 1993 Cup run (stopped short by the Montréal Canadiens in the Finals) in a shut-down role (Alexei Zhitnik, Darryl Sydor and Rob Blake had most of the powerplay and ''offensive'' minutes), notably against the Toronto Maple Leafs.

When the Habs traded away Patrick Roy in 1995, it had the effect of a cold shower on all things hockey-related for me. The Colorado Avalanche and, to a much lesser extent, the Oilers, were all I was interested in, and even then, mostly only come playoff time, until 2002. Coupled with my own fledgling career as a third-string goalie in the LHJMQ at the time and getting traded to the team with the best goaltending around the Holidays - causing me to ''retire'' and focus on music and film instead - I just needed time off from being a puck junkie.

Because of that, I did not witness Huddy in the twilight of his career, either with the St. Louis Blues nor the Buffalo Sabres, who were in the Habs' division and would have been easy to go see play a few times.

Regardless, my memories of him with the Oilers and Kings are clear enough to bring back tears of joy at times. And so it's an honor to have received these 6 cards and index card I'd sent him on March 3rd, 2014 along with a fan letter, care of the Winnipeg Jets where he is an assistant coach, signed in black sharpie with his jersey number (22) incorporated into the 'Y' at the end of his name - and that it only took 37 days.

First, here he is with the Oilers, in their white (home) uniform, from Pinnacle Brands' 1990-91 Score (card #199):

And with their blue (away) uniform:

The card of the left is from Topps' 1986-87 O-Pee-Chee set (card #211), while the one on the right is from Upper Deck's 1990-91 Series 1 set (card #341).

                                         (continued in the following post)

Rick Wamsley: 3 Autographed Cards

I've liked the Ottawa Senators for a long time. First, their jerseys caught my eye, and when the Daniel Alfredsson era began (and the Alexei Yashin era ended), I kept an interested eye on them. And, since then, the Sens have pretty much always consistently gone further in the playoffs than my hometown Habs, and I've found myself rooting for them more often than not.

Jason Spezza remains, in my mind, one of the premier passers in the league, Alfie is a great captain (second to maybe only Jarome Iginla), and they always seem to turn out having great talent on defense.

More often than not, goaltending has been blamed for their lack of playoff success (i.e. that elusive Stanley Cup), but from Peter Sidorkiewicz getting All Star nods to Ron Tugnutt to Patrick Lalime, goalies have always done what was expected of them for this team. And while Pascal Leclaire's streak of bad luck only got worse in Ottawa, he didn't fare badly at all and, this season, Craig Anderson has done an admirable job - and so has Ben Bishop in a relief role.

And one person to thank for the Sens' recent rise in goaltending prowess is undoubtedly goalie coach Rick Wamsley, a former Cup and Jennings winner himself, who had previously signed these two cards for me, almost 2 years ago.

Now, I was hoping the Sens would send the New York Rangers packing tonight, but it looks like there'll be a Game 7 in that series...

But back to Wamsley. I wrote him a new fan letter to go along with these 3 cards I sent him on February 24, 2012 and got them all back today, April 23rd, 2012. They show him wearing the colours of his first two NHL teams, firstly with the Montréal Canadiens:

The card on the left is from Topps' 1982-83 O-Pee-Chee set (card #195), coming off his Jennings-worth season; the card on the right, featuring a helmet-less low-resolution picture of Wamsley sporting the back-up's ''towel around the neck'' classic attire (in the 80s), is from In The Game's 2010-11 Between The Pipes set (card #145, the Greats Of The Game sub-set).

And this card, showing him with the beautiful 80s-era St. Louis Blues uniform:

This is card #240 of Topps' 1986-87 O-Pee-Chee set, a beautiful and classic one, showing Wamsley skating around during a pre-game warmup against the New Jersey Devils.

Don Beaupre: 3 Autographed Cards

Statistically, Don Beaupre was always near the top of the NHL in its statistics department, usually in the top-5 for goals-against average. He played in two All Star games, once as a member of the Minnesota North Stars (1981) and once representing the Washington Capitals (1993, in Montréal). He also played in the Stanley Cup Finals in 1981, a season during which he split goaltending duties with the legendary Gilles Meloche - my friend Martin Itfor, an important hockey blogger, is a huge fan.

The card below has been with me as far as I can remember, from Topps' 1986-87 O-Pee-Chee set (card #89):

It shows Beaupre as a member of the North Stars when I, myself, was playing for the NDG North Stars, with brown pads, a CCM helmet-with-a-cage and a Christian USA stick of my own (at the Atom level).

Below, two cards of Beaupre as a member of the Caps, who just clinched a playoff spot tonight:

The card on the left, showing Beaupre in the red (away) uniform, is from Pro Set's flagship 1991-92 Pro Set collection (card #601, showing him as the mid-season GAA leader - he had finished second in the entire NHL the previous season); the card on the right, showing him wearing the Caps' white (home) jersey but, more importantly, focusing on the superb DC cityscape mask I mentioned previously in this Enrico Ciccone post, is from In the Game's 2010-11 Between The Pipes set (the Greats Of The Game subset, card #157).

I sent Mr. Beaupre these 3 cards and a fan letter on March 5th (2012) and got them back less than 3 weeks later, on March 26th, signed in blue sharpie. I thought about sending him cards from his days with the Ottawa Senators but didn't want to push it by sending too many - especially to his home - and stuck with the teams I identify him with the most instead.

Joel Quenneville: 4 Autographed Cards

I sent Joel Quenneville these 4 cards and a fan letter on January 27th, 2012, and got them back, signed in thin blue sharpie on March 19th, 2012. When I wrote him, Quenneville's Chicago Blackhawks (he's the head coach) were on a steady drop but have since regained form, winning 8 of their last 10 games, one of the losses coming into overtime, thus benefiting from the Seb Hell Bump.

He was born on September 15th - a day after me... in he same year my mom was born, 1958. Drafted 21st overall (in the second round) in the 1978 draft by the Toronto Maple Leafs, he went on to play with the Colorado Rockies, New Jersey Devils, Hartford Whalers and Washington Capitals, but he spent most of my childhood (1983-1990) with the Whalers. He was a tough, puck-moving defenseman who racked up 705 penalty minutes in 803 NHL games to go with his 54 goals and 136 assists.

But that's only half his story: his major accomplishments lie in the coaching department. As an assistant coach with the Colorado Avalanche, he has his name engraved on the Stanley Cup for the magical 1995-96 win. As a head coach, he led to St. Louis Blues to 7 straight playoff berths, before getting fired during the 2003-04 season, during which he was still 29-23-7-2, good for 67 points in 61 games. He won the Jack Adams trophy for the 1999-2000 season.

He then coached the Avalanche for three seasons, after which he became a scout for the Blackhawks. As soon as his deal was signed, everyone knew it was a matter of time before he took the head coaching job there, and it took only 4 games for the Hawks to replace their legendary captain of the 80s, Denis Savard, with Quenneville at the beginning of the 2008-09 season, where he took them to the Conference Finals. The next year, they won the Cup.

With Kevin Dineen (Florida Panthers), Randy Cunneyworth (Montréal Canadiens), and Dave Tippett (Phoenix Coyotes), he is one of 4 current NHL coaches who has played with the Whalers, which is more than 13% of NHL head coaches. Factor in the assistant coaches (such as Randy Ladouceur in Montréal and Sean Burke and Ulf Samuelsson in Phoenix), and the numbers become astounding. They may not have won championships, but they knew about the game, that's for sure.

Now onto the cards:

These cards show the early-80s Whalers green (away) uniform, which included a whale on the shoulders, dating back to the team's WHA roots. The card on the right is from Topps' 1986-87 O-Pee-Chee set (card #118), showing Quenneville getting ready for a face-off, but the card on the left is really an OPC staple, from the 1983-84 O-Pee-Chee set (card #145): if you look closely, many things on the jersey and helmet look off... that's because he'd spent the previous season with the Rockies and didn't have a picture in the Whalers' uniform yet, so OPC, in all its wisdom, decided to airbrush (paint) a uniform on an existing picture. That's why the W look eerie.

From Topps' 1984-85 O-Pee-Chee set (card #77), a rare card featuring the Whalers' white (home) jersey of the early-80s. Back then, the NHL didn't have an exclusivity deal with Getty Images to own all pictures taken in amphitheaters as it does now, so card companies had to hire their own photographers to get material for their products, as they mostly hired guys who stayed around the New York area (where 3 teams call home) and, occasionally, Washington, D.C., which meant very few teams got to be featured in their home (white) jerseys. And very few photographers ventured outside the East Coast's major cities to come to Toronto, Detroit, Los Angeles or Montréal - let alone small towns like Hartford and Québec.

This is the Whalers as I remember them the best - the same green jersey, but without the whale on the shoulders, from Topps' 1988-89 O-Pee-Chee set (card #3). Like all the head coaches I mentioned previously who have played for the team, Quenneville sports the assistant captain's 'A' in this one. Captain Ron Francis has so far declined to take the head coaching job twice for the Carolina Hurricanes, opting for assistant coach and assistant-GM instead.

Murray Bannerman: 3 Autographed Cards

Murray Bannerman is an All-Star-caliber goalie (two AS games) who played all of his NHL career (minus one period) with the Chicago Blackhawks. He started as the legendary Tony Esposito's backup and pretty much took the job away from 1982 onwards.

I sent these three cards and a fan letter to his home on February 10th, 2012 (I could have also tried the Hawks' address, seeing as he still does charitable work with other team alumni) and received all three back, signed in black sharpie, on March 3rd, 2012. Three weeks for a legendary return!

This card is special for so many reasons. The Hawks' jersey, of course, has always been among the greatest in sports, the picture at the bottom with the mustache rules, and catching Bannerman mid-movement, skating from one side of the net to the other, skates in a 'T' like you learn as a kid, reminiscent of the Hanrahan's move in Slap Shot when he's told his wife is ''a lesbian'', before he goes nuts The card itself is from Topps' 1984-85 O-Pee-Chee set (card #27), a beautiful set.

As I mentioned before (in this Stan Smyl post in particular), the above card is from the first set I actually collected, purchasing pack after pack, at a rate of at least one per day (35 cents for 7 cards and a stick of gum was perfect for my 8-year old self), Topps' 1986-87 O-Pee-Chee set (card #180). It features Bannerman in an idle position, waiting for play to start again, with a nice view of the brand of equipment he wore (Brown).

Of course, it's nearly impossible to mention Murray Bannerman without talking about his mask, one of the most recognizable in the history of the NHL, as featured in this card from In The Game's 2010-11 Between The Pipes set (card #148, part of the Greats Of The Game sub-set). It features an aboriginal head (not a geisha as some have awkwardly suggested) that is totally in tune with the team's logo. These will soon be framed and hung with my Glenn Hall Autographed Framed Lithograph on a ''Hawks' goalies'' section of my living room wall.

Stan Smyl: 3 Autographed Cards

Welcome to my childhood! Stan Smyl was already the Vancouver Canucks' captain when I started paying attention to the NHL in the mid-80s. He was viewed as the Canucks' best player for most of his time, and held many team records, most of which have since been surpassed.

Among them: most points in a single season (88), most points in a single month (31), and the career leader in goals, assists and points. The goals and points marks were beaten by both Trevor Linden and Markus Naslund - his successors as captain - while the assists mark has been bested by Henrik Sedin.

Still, as the original Captain Canuck, he wore the classic Canucks uniforms I thought defined the team - I always hated the blue and green ones they brought back from purgatory a couple of years ago:

I barely knew the 'V' jerseys and, quite honestly, I always found them rather repulsive - and the yellow 'home' jersey was the worst of all. I like the black 'V' more than the retro/current/first ones, though. This one is from the 1982-83 O-Pee-Chee set (card #356) by Topps.

These two, however, to me, are the quintessential Canucks uniforms, as well as those I identify with the most from my childhood. The card on the left is from the first set I ever collected seriously, Topps' 1986-87 O-Pee-Chee (card #50), where my parents would let me buy a 35-cents pack of 7 cards for every errand I ran for them at the convenience store. Notice the patch on the jersey - it commemorates the city of Vancouver hosting the World's Fair in 1986. The card on the right is from the 1987-88 Topps set (card #4).

I sent Smyl these three cards and a fan letter care of the Canucks, where he is currently the assistant general manager, on January 27th, 2012, and got them all back signed in a fading black sharpie on February 16th - the same day I got these Guy Lafleur cards.