Alexander Radulov Jersey Card

(As per years past, this is a twin-post with my "regular" blog, where I predicted the Dallas Stars would finish third in the Central Division in 2019-20).

I really believed Ben Bishop was going to lead the Dallas Stars to the Conference Final last season. He'd worked miracles all year long yet was sure to get the shaft for the Vezina - which was almost always going to go to Andrei Vasilevskiy - so it was only right for karma to reward his efforts with a double-overtime Game 7 win instead of the 2-1 loss. He had been the better goalie in the series, as well as in the first round, but Fate had decided the St. Louis Blues would win it all.

One player who shouldn't be embarrassed by the effort level he put into every game - although he did miss a game due to being late for practice - on the Stars is star winger Alexander Radulov, who had 29 goals, 43 assists and 72 points in 70 regular-season games and 10 more points (5 goals, 5 assists) in 13 playoff games.

To put it into perspective, despite missing ten games, he was second on the team in goals, assists and points, far ahead of captain Jamie Benn, who dressed for 78 games, and on pace to catch up to leader Tyler Seguin:

from HockeyDB

At the age of 33, he is showing no signs of slowing down. I expect another 70+-point season on his part as the Stars look to get past a tight Central Division and make an even deeper run than last year.

Also, Radu's looking pretty good in Dallas' white (away) uniform on the jersey insert version of card #66 from Upper Deck's 2018-19 SP Game-Used collection I got from Ebay earlier this summer:

It features a black game-worn jersey swatch that is from the stripes on either the home or away uniform. It blends extremely well with the rest of the card.

Alexander Radulov Jersey card

Coming off a terrific comeback season with the Montréal Canadiens, Alexander Radulov will go from a team that has Jordie Benn in its top-six on defense to the team that got rid of him as their seventh guy but is captained by his brother (Jamie Benn), the Dallas Stars. Indeed, the former Nashville Predators first-round draft pick (15th overall, 2004) has just signed this summer's most lucrative free agent deal, a five-year, $31.5M deal that carries a $6.25M cap hit.

It's a mixed summer for Habs GM Marc Bergevin, as he signed the Washington Capitals' best defensive defenseman (in my opinion, the best of the second-tier guys who do what he does, behind the top-four of Marc-Édouard Vlasic, Marc Methot, Ryan Ellis and Mattias Ekholm), but lost his team's best forward last season in Radulov, is playing hardball with one of the organization's best defensemen of all time in Andrei Markov, and looks primed to sign goalie Carey Price to the team's highest-paying contract of all time, likely top in the league by over two million per season (edit: actually by $3M, and since most of the money is in the form of signing bonuses, cannot reasonably be bought out to minimize the cap hit, as signing bonuses are guaranteed money), which will handicap the team's chances of building a contender for eight years. It's like he's hockey's Donald Trump, doing his best to get fired.

Oh, and he followed the league-wide trend of signing veterans to $1M/one-year contracts, but instead of opting for, say,  Michael Cammalleri (Los Angeles Kings), Patrick Sharp (Chicago Blackhawks), Scott Hartnell (Predators), Nail Yakupov (Colorado Avalanche), David Desharnais (New York Rangers), Dominic Moore (Toronto Maple Leafs), Kyle Quincey (Minnesota Wild), Jussi Jokinen (Edmonton Oilers), Brandon Bollig (San Jose Sharks), or Benoît Pouliot (Buffalo Sabres), he went for injury magnet Ales Hemsky.

The Stars' Jim Nill, however, is looking to build a contender, after missing the playoffs entirely due to shaky goaltending following a first-place finish in the Central Division. Antti Niemi was bought out, Ben Bishop was brought in via trade-and-sign, and Kari Lehtonen will back him up for one season. The aforementioned Methot was acquired in a trade with the Vegas Golden Knights, and the team still boasts Tyler Seguin, Benn and Jason Spezza on offense, in addition to signing Martin Hanzal, who could be Nill's mistake of the summer, as he's shown with the Minnesota Wild last season to be slow and unable to make those playing with him better.

Because of that, I envision the Benn/Seguin first-line pairing to remain intact, I expect Spezza to hit 50-60 points playing with guys who can finish his plays a small portion of the time (Antoine Roussel and Mattias Janmark) and Radulov to take Hanzal on his back and get him to some 40-50 points, which should also get casual fans thinking "Radu" is having a disappointing season while Hanzal's producing at his expected rate, when in fact the Toothless Russian will have carried him all season long. Case in point: Phillip Danault, who I like a lot, but whom Radulov got to the 40-poin mark despite his having never even reached that production level in the Chicago Blackhawks' AHL system and had obtained a grand total of 10 NHL points in his previous 53 NHL games spread over two seasons. Hey, this type of situation made Phil Kessel turn Nick Bonino into a "prized free agent" and two-time Stanley Cup winner...

As a reminder, Radulov is not only one of the hockey players that is most difficult to knock off the puck and an adept playmaker and scorer, but also a two-time World Championship gold medalist with Team Russia (2008 and 2009), a Gagarin Cup winner with Ufa Salavat Yulaev (2011) and Memorial Cup champion with the Québec Remparts (2006), as well as the KHL's second all-time leading scorer behind Sergei Mozyakin.

Here he is wearing the Preds' former home uniform, on card #HM-AR from Fleer's 2007-08 Hot Prospects by Upper Deck:

It features a matching white game-worn jersey swatch.

Alexander Radulov Autographed Team Postcard

Ah, the enigmatic Alexander Radulov! Like fellow Russian Alexei Kovalev, he has all the talent in the world, but has trouble not igniting controversy.

He came to the Québec Remparts of the LHJMQ to get acquainted with the North American style of play (and a higher draft position) while in Juniors, and he posted a 75-point season as a rookie (in 65 games) in 2004-05, but what knocked everything out of the park and led to unbelievable expectations towards him was his sophomore season, where he scored 61 goals and got 91 assist for 152 points in 62 games (an additional 55 points in 23 playoff games and 9 points in 5 Memorial Cup games as the Remparts won it all that year), leading all Canadian Juniors that year.

He even managed to put together a 50-game scoring streak (second of all time to Mario Lemieux's 62) and to have an 11-point night at some point.

In both of his junior seasons, he won silver at the World Juniors with Team Russia.

After two seasons in the Nashville Predators' system (one spent completely in the NHL, one with an 11-game stint in the AHL), he bolted to the KHL to play with the Ufa Salavat Yulaev, where there is no cap on rookie salaries (he was said to earn roughly $5M per year, tax-free, in Russia). But it wasn't all about the money - he stands as the KHL's all-time leading scorer with 254 points in 210 games (it's a low-scoring league).

As an adult, he's represented his country on many occasions, finishing 6th at the 2010 Olympics, but winning two gold World Championship medals (2008 in front of a loving crowd in Québec, and 2009) and a bronze (2007).

He sparked controversy last season by joining the Preds for the final 9 regular-season games (7 points) after his KHL season ended, thus ''fulfilling'' his rookie contract and no longer being under the ''rookie cap'' of roughly $1M; should he feel like playing in the NHL again, he could ask for a salary similar to the one he gets in the KHL, without having actually played 3 seasons in North America.

Not only that, but he did make headlines after partying too hard with Andrei Kostitsyn and missing a curfew in the playoffs, and was suspended by the team for 2 games. He did manage to gather a team-leading 6 points in 8 playoff games in what was widely considered a disappointing turn.

This team-issued postcard was signed in black sharpie to a reputable collector from Québec City, who traded it to me for a few jersey cards. I'm not sure if he got it during Radulov's run with the Remparts or at the WC, but it was at the Colisée after a game, that's for sure - he has quite a few of these.