Kelly Hrudey: Two Autographed Cards

I was about a month old when Kelly Hrudey started playing as a rookie for the WHL's Medecine Hat Tigers, a season in which he'd appear in 57 games for the team that went 15-50-7, which explains why his goals-against average was 6.17; he brought it down to 4.17 the following season, posting a winning record (25-23-4) and convincing the New York Islanders to select him in the second round (38th overall) at the 1980 draft.

The following season, he was named to the WHL's Second All-Star Team after bring his GAA down to 3.97 and keeping an .895 save percentage, on his way to the professional ranks; he spent four seasons with the Central Hockey League's Indianapolis Checkers where he would hone his game to besome an eventual NHL starter in lieu of Isles star Billy Smith, winning the league's Best Goalie ("Terry Sawchuk") trophy twice, earning First Team All-Star status twice, winning the playoff MVP for the 1981-82 season and regular-season MVP the next year.

He split the 1983-84 season between the CHL and NHL and got to the Big Show full time in 1984-85, playing 41 games to Smith's 37 and Roland Melanson's 8, on an Isles team that iced no fewer than three 100-point players: Mike Bossy (58 goals, 117 points), Brent Sutter (42 goals, 102 points) and John Tonelli (42 goals, 100 points).

He would appear in more and more games each year, cementing his position as the #1 goalie up until and including the 1988-89 season, where he was a trade deadline after appearing in 50 games to the Isles, and sent to the Los Angeles Kings where he would appear in another 19 and be a fixture for eight years, culminating in a 1993 Stanley Cup Final appearance.

He would finish his career by spending two seasons with the San Jose Sharks alongside two other veterans - Ed Belfour and Mike Vernon - before retiring to Calgary and joining the Hockey Night In Canada/Sportsnet analysis teams for Calgary Flames games but also the national telecasts.

But today I want to focus on the earlier part of his career. This is an artist's rendering of what he looked like wearing the Tigers' Philadelphia Flyers-inspired uniform, on card #138 from In The Game's 2013-14 Heroes And Prospects set and Hockey Hero sub-set:

And this is him wearing his classic Jofa helmet-and-grid with the Islanders' blue (then-away) uniform, on card #123 from ITG's 2013-14 Between The Pipes set and Greats Of The Game sub-set:

That was his look when he set a record that would last 33 years, that of making 73 saves in a single playoff game - the seven-period "1987 Easter Epic", which stood until hours ago when Joonas Korpisalo of the Columbus Blue Jackets stopped 85 Tampa Bay Lightning shots in a bitter eight-period Game 1 loss.

And Hrudey took it well, as you can see here:

He seems humble, genuine and nice, which is the same feeling I had when I received those cards from him in the mail a few years back. I had written him a fan letter and joined those cards care of HNIC and they came back in roughly eight months. He signed them in black sharpie.

He's also been an advocate for mental health for a few years now, and even more so during the pandemic.

Philipp Grubauer Autographed Card

Philipp Grubauer has come a long way since almost wrestling the Washington Capitals' starting job away from Braden Holtby after the Vegas Golden Knights expansion draft; Gru was traded to the Colorado Avalanche with one year of Brooks Orpik's monstrous contract to be bought out, for a second-round draft pick. You'd think not having Orpik attached would have netted the Caps something in the same vicinity as Semyon Varlamov once did - a first and a second.

Don't cry for the Capitals, however, because even though Holtby's deal is up now and no one should re-sign him at anything above $3M per - least of whom Washington - the team still has another blue chip young goalie ready to take over, 22-year-old Ilya Samsonov.

But back to Grubauer, who unfortunately didn't finish the Stadium Series game against the Los Angeles Kings tonight, suffering a lower-body injury when colliding with defenseman Ian Cole after stopping Kings forward Austin Wagner on a breakaway. He was having another terrific season for the Avs:

from HockeyDB

I included his career stats to show that when playing with a team that is good defensively, he can be even better, but the Avs are not that at all. For instance, two members of their top line are in the minuses: Mikko Rantanen (40 points in 41 games, -1) and Gabriel Landeskog (26 points in 41 games, -8), on a team that is two points out of first place in their division after that loss to the Kings earlier tonight, with two games in hand on the two teams that occupy that position.

Grubauer is one of the few Avs players with experience winning championships: he's won the Memorial Cup with the Windsor Spitfires in 2010 and was a member of the Capitals when they won the Stanley Cup in 2018.

Here he is from his final season in the OHL, wearing the Kingston Frontenacs' black (away) uniform, on card #36 from In The Game's 2010-11 Between the Pipes set:

He signed it in blue sharpie in 2017-18, but I had lost track of it in my last move. You'll notice his equipment's not the same colour as his uniform; that's because both the Spitfires and the Caps' colour scheme is red, white and blue, while the Frontenacs chose to lean on the Boston Bruins' black and yellow/gold.

Johan Hedberg: Three Autographed Cards

The Pittsburgh Penguins, like the Montréal Canadiens, always seem to be able to find either a star goalie at every turn or at the very least someone who will hold the fort superbly well - and get recognition for it - while the Next One comes along.

Originally a Philadelphia Flyers draft pick (ninth round, 218th overall, 1994), Johan Hedberg was an up-and-coming Swedish goalie who looked like he needed seasoning but could become a reliable net-minder; the Flyers didn't quite agree, however, as they let him rot in Sweden and toil around in the minor leagues for four years before sending him to the San Jose Sharks organization without letting him earn even a call-up as a backup. In those years, the Flyers were considered "weak" in net, with the position often being cited as the weak link and reason why the Eric Lindros-led team didn't make it to the Stanley Cup Final more than once. Their revolving door of goalies in that era consisted of Ron Hextall in his second stint with the team (1994-98), hot prospect Dominic Roussel (1994-96), Garth Snow (1995-98) and Sean Burke as a trade deadline rental (1997-98).

Further than fifth on the Sharks' depth chart and in danger of spending more time in the ECHL, he spent the 1998-99 with the Swedish League's Leksands Idrottsförening helping the team finish fourth overall. He came back to North America for the 1999-2000 season, playing for the AHL's Kentucky Thoroughblades, sharing the net with the best goalie in Sharks history, Evgeni Nabokov, and the best goalie in the world in the mid-00s, Miikka Kiprusoff.

It took a loan to the unaffiliated IHL team Manitoba Moose for him to gain visibility, enough for the 2000-01 Pittsburgh Penguins - in danger of missing the playoffs with Snow, Jean-Sébastien Aubin and Rich Parent in net (none of whom had a save percentage above .900) - despite an offence that boasted such talents as Jaromir Jagr (121 points in 81 games), Alex Kovalev (95 points in 79 games), Martin Straka (95 points in 82 games), Mario Lemieux (76 points in 43 games!), Robert Lang (80 points in 82 games) and trade deadline re-acquisition Kevin Stevens (23 points in 32 games), to make his acquisition and throw him directly to the wolved.

Indeed, Moose head coach Randy Carlyle had to redirect him to Pittsburgh, as Hedberg originally assumed he was going to their AHL affiliate to close out the season. Instead, Hedberg led the Pens with a 7-1-1 record in 9 games to close out the season, with a 2.64 GAA (34 points better than the next best goalie, Snow) and .905 save percentage.

Not only did the Pens finish third in the Atlantic Division but sixth in the Eastern Conference, qualifying for the postseason, in which Hedberg outplayed Vezina winners and Stanley Cup finalists Olaf Kolzig (Washington Capitals) and Dominik Hasek (Buffalo Sabres) and leading the team to the Conference Finals, where they lost to the defending champions New Jersey Devils. Because of Devils head coach Larry Robinson's system (strongly based on predecessor Jacques Lemaire's system, but perhaps even stronger defensively), the Pens only registered 99 total shots on Martin Brodeur in the entire five-game series.

Hedberg entered the 2001-02 season as the team's #1 goalie and did not disappoint, continuing on his run with similar numbers (2.75 GAA, .904 save %, 6 shutouts, nightly highlight-reel saves) , but without Jagr gone and with Lemieux being limited to just 25 games, Kovalev was the lone offensive weapon on the team (76 points in 67 games) as it missed the playoffs by finishing fifth in its division.

The 2002-03 season wasn't as good for Hedberg, however, as his GAA climbed to 3.14 and his save percentage dipped to .895, and in the next summer he ws sent to the Vancouver Canucks for a second-round pick. From then on, he would mostly be counted on as a reliable backup who was a great teammate in stints with the Dallas Stars, Atlanta Thrashers and New Jersey Devils.

I'll get to those in a later post because the more pressing matter is the San Jose Sharks cleaned house today and Peter DeBoer and his entire staff (save for Bob Boughner, who takes over as head coach on an interim basis) were let go, meaning assistant coaches Steve Spott and Dave Barr were also relieved of their duties, as was goaltending coach... Johan Hedberg.

You may recall from my annual pre-season predictions that I'm no fan of DeBoer, who I believe was in the bottom-five coaches in the NHL. And you'll see here I am fond of Hedberg, as a player and a person. However, before he took on the job in San Jose, the Sharks' net looked like this (all images courtesy of HockeyDB):

2014-15

That's Antti Niemi with 5 shutouts. Then DeBoer replaced Todd McLellan, Boughner replaced Robinson as the defense corps' coach, and the goaltenders also got replaced:

2015-16

2016-17

2017-18

2018-19

2019-20

That's three goalies on a downward spiral - and the first one to drop, Alex Stalock, is arguably the guy keeping the Minnesota Wild in the playoff race so far this season.

The Sharks almost always have a contending-level roster, particularly on defence with two, three or four All-Star/Olympians at a time, so at some point the coaches have to be held accountable for the lack of results. The players too, mind you, and these guys do not seem to have it in them to reach the enxt level to win, mentally or physically - but the coaches have to at least get the statistics te remain on the level to keep their jobs.

The goalies in San Jose have been trending downwards for too long now, and the stagnation in the depths of the NHL rankings just cost Hedberg his job, whether the fault is his own or not.

Here he is in happier times, when he'd been recalled from the IHL and had the team's logo which would become his nickname, "Moose":

The card on the left is #76 from Pacific's 2001-02 Heads Up set, a beautiful bright foil card, while the one on the right is #42 from In The Game's 2001-02 Between The Pipes set, a darker foil card (not as dark as the scan, mind you) that is reminiscent of some Upper Deck Black Diamond sets. Both show him wearing the Penguins' 1995-2002 "futuristic" road (black) uniform.

And here he is wearing the Penguins 2002-07 black (then-home) jersey (which was also similar to their 2007-16 Reebok Edge jersey), on card #143 from Upper Deck's 2002-03 Series 1 set, stretching during pre-game warmups:

All three cards were signed in black sharpie when he was a member of the Devils (2010-13). He was very nice, and upon learning that I wasn't just a bald Simpsons comic book guy lookalike but had also been a goalie in my day, extended our talk from a five-second interaction to a couple of minutes as the team was packing to leave the area.

Alex Stalock: Three Autographed Cards

Alex Stalock's biggest issue at the NHL level has been consistency; he's had full 24-game seasons as a backup where he's posted a .932 save percentage, but followed them with consecutive seasons well below that at .902 (22 games) and .884 (13 games), with the San Jose Sharks finally losing patience with him and sending him packing to the Toronto Maple Leafs before he signed on with the Minnesota Wild, where he's been since 2016-17.

And it's not like he's an AHL-level goalie, because he can dominate at times when he's down there, too.

He's just one of maybe 45 NHL goalies that you have to roll the dice on and hope the team in front of him gives him a fighting chance and the opposition isn't in a state of grace, and you let it play out.

He's been on the ball in two outings this year, surrendering a single goal on 11 shots in just under 25 minutes in relief of Devan Dubnyk in a 7-4 loss to the Pittsburgh Penguins, and shutting out the Ottawa Senators for the Wild's first win of the season last night.

My high school teammate Ben Guité - now an associate coach at the University of Maine - played with him on the 2011-12 Worcester Sharks.

Stalock signed these three cards for me in black sharpie in 2012-13 when I went to see the Hamilton Bulldogs play a lot. First, here are two Future Stars cards from In The Game:

The one on the left is #2 from the 2009-10 Between The Pipes set, while the one on the right is #47 from the 2010-11 Between The Pipes collection.

The is also card #119 from In The Game's 2010-11 Heroes And Prospects set:

All three show him wearing the (Worcester) Sharks' black (away) uniform, with a different patch chest patch (none, Hyundai, and Be A Leader); they also have his uniform number (32) tagged at the end of the signature.

Antoine Bibeau Jersey Card

Antoine Bibeau was a sixth-round draft pick of the Toronto Maple Leafs in 2013 but has spent most of his time plying his trade at the AHL level, including the last couple of seasons with the San Jose Barracuda. He's been quoted as saying this summer that his goal coming into training camp is to force the San Jose Sharks to keep him as Martin Jones' backup in the NHL, despite not having played as well as 21-year-old Josef Korenar last season:

Courtesy of HockeyDB

Still, the previous season, in his age 23 season, he represented the Barracuda in the AHL's All-Star Game, finishing with a 2.39 GAA, .919 save percentage and five shutouts in 43 games. He certainly still has potential, and his NHL-level statistics (a win, a loss and a 1.99 GAA in two games) do inspire some kind of confidence.

Bibeau has the rare distinction of having played for four (!!) different teams in the LHJMQ - the Lewiston MAINEiacs, Prince Edward Island Rocket, Charlottetown Islanders and Val d'Or Foreur - in his for seasons of Juniors. As a mater of fact, today's card shows him wearing the Foreurs' green (away) uniform, but contains a blue game-worn jersey swatch from his days in PEI:

That's the Silver Version of card #GUM-06 from In The Game's 2013-14 Between The Pipes set and Game-Used Jersey sub-set. He won the Hap Emms Trophy as the Memorial Cup's best goalie just months after this card was issued.

Mathias Niederberger Autograph Card

After three seasons on this side of the pond, goalie Mathias Niederberger went back home to Germany, playing for his hometown Duesseldorf Eislauf-Gemeinschaft (EG) for the last three years to boot.

He had been named the OHL's Goalie Of The Week in 2012 when he posted two consecutive shutouts for the Barrie Colts, then was given an AHL contract with the Manchester Monarchs, but opted to move back to Germany after playing in the ECHL more often (9 games) than the AHL (6 games) in an injury-plagued 2013-14 season.

He was named the DEL's Goaltender of the Year in 2015-16. Chances are he'll represent Team Germany at the 2018 Olympics, like his father has done four times.

Here he is wearing the Colts' white (home) uniform, on card #A-MN from In The Game's 2012-13 Between The Pipes set and Authentic Goaliegraph sub-set:

It features a black-sharpied on-sticker autograph with his uniform number (35) tagged underneath.

Liam Liston Jersey Card

When he first started playing for the WHL's Brandon Wheat Kings, goalie Liam Liston was viewed as a top prospect - he even suited up in the 2011 Home Hardware CHL/NHL Top Prospects Game. After all, he spent most of his minor-league hockey with GAAs under 2.25 with decent save percentages. Sportsnet even asked him to pen a few blog posts ahead of the 2011 Draft, about player expectations and one piece mentioning his concussion issues.

We'll never know for sure what weighed heavier in Liston's never getting drafted, not just in 2011, but 2012 as well, but it's fair to say that the concussion that ended his 2010-11 postseason may have had an impact. His abysmal statistics the following year as well:

From HockeyDB

Here's what it looked like in comparison to his teammates, first with the Wheat Kings, a team that included future NHLers Mark Stone, Micheal Ferland, and Ryan Pulock:

Now let's have a look at how he fared with the Lethbridge Hurricanes (he did get the team's only shutout):

He's worst or second-worst by any metric, be it save percentage, wins percentage or goals-against average.

And his 20-year-old season with the Vancouver Giants was even worse:

I can relate, in a way, because I too was a star goalie in Bantam and Midget, and I too was brought into Juniors with some level of expectation, but Liston had the courage to play his chance out, whereas I was seen by the Laval Titan as not being a "team player" (they had two sayings: "every Titan has to always be ready to fight, especially the backup goalie", and "we all shave our heads into a Mohawk come playoff time", which would have been a shame, what with my rock star coif), leading to their sending me to the Halifax Mooseheads, who had a certain Jean-Sébastien Giguère in nets already and no available school where I could continue my post-secondary/not-university education, at which time I opted to retire.

Liston had the balls to take it as far as he could, and studied law later to boot. He has a stable life. I'm an independent musician and freelance writer/translator who lives paycheck-to-paycheck. He clearly has the better life and made the best choices, although we do have in common that we both teach youth hockey in our spare time.

Here he is wearing the Giants' white (home) uniform on card #M-42 from In The Game's 2012-13 Between The Pipes set and Game-Used Jersey sub-set:

It features a game-worn swatch from the 2011 CHL/NHL Prospects Game, according to ITG:

It's the Silver Version, too.

Anthony Stolarz: Two Autographed Cards

When the Philadelphia Flyers selected Anthony Stolarz with the 45th overall pick (second round) in 2012, the plan was to let the first New Jersey-born NHL-quality goalie slowly develop into a #1 goalie. Whether it was going to take seven years to become a top-level puck stopper (Carey Price) or nine (Jake Allen), GM Ron Hextall was not going to throw him to the wolves sooner than necessary.

Five years in, he saw his first 7 games of action in 2016-17, winning the first one, earning a shutout in the second, ending up with a 2-1-1 record, .928 save percentage and 2.07 goals-against average, easily the tops on the team ahead of Michal Neuvirth and Steve Mason.

That being said, his season in the AHL had its ups and downs, with a 2.92 GAA and .911 save percentage that ranked him behind Alex Lyon. So when Hextall extended both Lyon and Stolarz earlier today, it sent a clear message that Stolarz is not ready to be an NHL backup yet in his general manager's eyes. He'll need to dominate consistently in the AHL before getting that chance, which explains why Hextall also signed free agent on-again, off-again starter Brian Elliott for two years on July 1st.

I look forward to watching the 6'6" goalkeeper's development throughout the years. For now, however, here's a look at the uniforms he wore with the OHL's London Knights, starting with the black "away" one, with a throwback to the team's 1970s logo, on card #33 from In The Game's 2012-13 Between the Pipes set and CHL Prospects sub-set:

And here he is wearing the white alternate home uniform with the KNIGHTS downward wordmark, on card #12 from ITG's 2013-14 Heroes And Prospects set:

He signed both in blue sharpie, tagging his jersey number (43) at the end, during the 2014-15 AHL season, after a Lehigh Valley Phantoms game against the Hamilton Bulldogs.

The cards show his goaltending stance very well: he's a tall, butterfly goalie who hasn't learned to keep his stick blade stuck to the ice and uses the "patting glove hand" method that cuts out some of the angles but reduces occurrences of reflex stops, particularly the middle two feet of the left post. I usually prefer when my students extend their hand outwards a little more to the left and not so much to the front - I'd rather their stance say "try me" than show fear and play safe, which I also call "play dead". But I've never played in the NHL, and Stolarz will one day star in it.

Fun fact regarding the cards: they do not agree on where he was born:

For the record, he was born in Edison and raised in Jackson.

Jeff Drouin-Deslauriers Jersey Card

I was wondering what happened to Jeff Drouin-Deslauriers recently, finding it hard to believe that a player who was a 31st overall pick (Edmonton Oilers, 2002) and played last season in Germany (with the Augsburger Panther) would be out of work at 33 years old.

Well, I found him when perusing stats from the Chinook Hockey League, as he played 3 games with the Lacombe Generals (posting a high 2.98 goals-against average but a decent .917 save percentage). If you remember this story about Ryan Smyth, they're the team Smyth's Stony Plain Eagles were facing in the Chinook League final. Both teams eventually made it to the Allan Cup, but the Generals made it to the final.

Justice was served, however, as the Grand-Falls Windsor Cataracts won the championship. Of note, the Generals brought no less than five goalies to the tournament: Drouin-Deslauriers, who was the third-string goalie, Steven Stanford, the backup, and starter Kramer Barnstable; Marcel Léger and Jacob Deserres were also on board.

So, yeah, that's where JDD is at these days. He hasn't appeared in a postseason game since surrendering a bunch of goals while with the Oklahoma City Barons in 2010-11...

He currently works as a sales and leasing associate at commercial real estate service company Cushman & Wakefield.

Here he is while with the Oilers, with a nice view of his mask, on card #M-25 (Black Version) of In The Game's 2010-11 Between The Pipes set and Game-Used Jersey sub-set:

It features a nice, large, two-colour game-worn jersey swatch from his days with the Oilers.

Matt Murray Autographed Card

(team and product links go to sponsored Amazon products, player links go to related pages on my blog, news links go to source pages)

I had plans, a New Season's Resolution of sorts; it was easy: boycott the Montréal Canadiens and the Bell Centre for at least a year and follow the other teams I like: Los Angeles Kings, Chicago Blackhawks, Calgary Flames, Edmonton Oilers, and Florida Panthers. And attend games at the Ottawa Senators' Canadian Tire Center.

Why? Because of the P.K. Subban-for-Shea Weber trade.

Well, I'll revise that to "no Habs games", because I went to the World Cup pre-tournament game tonight:

My takeaway from the game between Team Europe and the North American U-23 Team?

Jaroslav Halak still has it, and he may be the difference between a projected seventh-place finish (only Team Czech Republic is worse on paper) and, say, a fourth place if one of Russia, Canada, Team USA, Finland or Sweden slips up.

Zdeno Chara, however, cannot keep up. Marian Gaborik has a bit of a temper but can still score.

Johnny Gaudreau is no one-hit wonder; he was dominant (as much as Jonathan Drouin and Aaron Ekblad) on a team that also features Nathan MacKinnon, Connor McDavid, Jack Eichel and Auston Matthews - you know, the last four "next Sidney Crosbys".

John Gibson was in net for the kids, and he hasn't reached peak form yet, which just reinforces the impression that Matt Murray - who along with Phil Kessel may have been robbed for the Conn Smythe Trophy in June - will be the team's goalie of choice for the tournament.

And Murray happened to sign this card in blue sharpie:

It's #67 from In The Game's 2012-13 Between The Pipes set and CHL Prospects set, showing him in the Sault Ste. Marie Greyhounds' red (away) uniform.

Ironically, sitting right in front of me was the Concordia Stingers' head coach, meaning I got to talk about their new goalie, Philippe Cadorette, in person tonight.

Philippe Cadorette Autograph Card

It's been a roller-coaster 15 months for goaltender Philippe Cadorette, who went from leading the Baie-Comeau Drakkar to the LHJMQ Final to signing a contract with the Norfolk Admirals - the Edmonton Oilers' ECHL team - to going back to Juniors as a 20-year-old after four sub-par games to setting the Q's career regular-season (17) and total shutouts (22) records to getting traded for the first time (to the Shawinigan Cataractes).

He got his chance at Norfolk on a Quebecer-heavy roster because the head coach there was Éric Veilleux, who was the held the same position with Baie-Comeau during much of Cadorette's tenure.

Not feeling ready to try his hand in the lower-tiered pro leagues as of yet and wanting to pursue his education, he has enrolled in university in Montréal for the next year and will be suiting up for the Concordia Stingers in 2016-17.

The Stingers usually pale in comparison to their natural rival McGill Redmen (the oldest organized hockey team in the world, having been founded in 1877 - a whole 31 years prior to the Montréal Canadiens, the oldest/longest-standing professional team); however, having an established goalie with a pedigree like Cadorette's should give them a fighting chance, at least.

Here he is wearing the Drakkar's white (home) uniform, which would be fine if it was devoid of the Reebok Rbk Edge stripes and piping on the chest:

That's card #A-PC from In The Game's 2012-13 Between The Pipes collection and CHL Prospects and Authentic GoalieGraph sub-sets, and features an on-sticker signature, in black sharpie.

Gilles Meloche: 2 Autographed Cards

We have all seen the San Jose Sharks make their way to this year's Stanley Cup Final, on the strength of the strong play of Logan Couture, Marc-Édouard Vlasic and the impressive leadership of Joe Pavelski (yes, I admit it).

But did you know the Sharks have roots that date all the way back to the 1960s, namely the California Seals? Indeed. Though the Seals were founded by Barry Van Gerbig and first sold to Charles O. Finley, it was the Gund Brothers (George and Gordon) who were the first to really take the team to heart.

So much so that when it became impossible to continue operating in the Bay Area, they relocated it to their hometown, forming the NHL iteration of the Cleveland Barons before merging with the Minnesota North Stars. The North Stars' minority owner Howard Baldwin threatened to move the team to California claiming poor attendance record, and in a twist that only the Bronze Era NHL could come up with, decided to mediate the ownership's power struggles by awarding the Gunds a new expansion team - the San Jose Sharks - and half the North Stars' roster as further compensation.

As a mark of respect for the organization's roots and their own history with the league, they decided to use teal as the team's main colour, just like in their days manning the Seals (under Finley's watch, the team had temporarily been renamed the Golden Seals and were mostly using an Oakland Athetics-style yellow as their main colour, matching his other team).

The Seals were god-awful; they had one good forward (Carol Vadnais) and one of the best goalies of his era in Gilles Meloche; the rest were pretty much AHLers, which explains why the team has one of the worst records in league history.

Meloche has an All-Star Game on his resume, and when sharing the net with Don Beaupre in Minnesota formed one of the best tandems in the league, reaching the Cup Final and semi-finals in a short period of time.

Here he is in two of his three most memorable uniforms (I couldn't get my hands on a card of his with the Barons), from In The Game's 2011-12 Between The Pipes set, first with the Seals on card #182 (part of the La Belle Province sub-set):

And here he is sporting his classic North Stars mask - which he had re-made for the Minnesota Wild/Stars' alumni game this winter - on card #132, from the Decades: The 1970s sub-set:

He signed both in thin black sharpie.

Upon retiring, after playing three seasons for the franchise, Meloche spent nearly 20 years as the Pittsburgh Penguins' goaltending coach, winning three Stanley Cups in the process. He's now a part-time special assignment scout for the team.

In another ironic twist, Baldwin owned the Pens as well... he was the team's chairman when it elected to go to bankruptcy in 1998.

George Gund died in January. The Sharks honored him as a builder on the night they played the Montréal Canadiens. 

Doug Soetaert Autograph Card

Honestly, I didn't know much about Doug Soetaert until I landed this card a few years ago.

He was the goalie wearing #1 on Montréal Canadiens team pictures in 1984-85 and 1985-86 - I know that because I'm a Montrealer, because I have a thing for goalies, and because I've been looking at those pictures pretty much my entire life, as they are the first ones of Patrick Roy.

I knew he'd signed with the New York Rangers afterwards, having a sub-par outing for them going 2-7-2 with 14 penalty minutes in 13 games - yes, that's more than a minute per - and a whopping 5.16 GAA and dismal .842 save percentage, after which he retired.

What I didn't know was that he spent the second half of the 1970s with the Blueshirts, followed by three seasons with the Winnipeg Jets. You can find a profile of his career here.

Post-retirement, he was VP and GM of the WHL's Everett Silvertips, then assistant GM with the Calgary Flames, scout with European teams falling under the Red Bull (you read that correctly) banner in Austria and Germany, and has been on the Arizona Coyotes' scouting staff since last summer.

He had a pretty cool mask whilst with the Rangers, too, as can be attested on card #A-DS from In The Game's 2011-12 Between The Pipes 10 Anniversary set (part of the Decades - The 1970s and GoalieGraphs sub-set):

It features a black-sharpied on-sticker autograph that is extremely subtle, as is was often the case with ITG. I speak in the past tense, of course, because ITG will cease to exist once it releases its Final Vault product in a few weeks, after an unsuccessful merger with Leaf.

Chad Johnson Autographed Card

In the seven seasons from 2009-10 until 2015-16, Chad Johnson has played in at least one NHL game in six of them. For five different teams - the New York Rangers, Phoenix Coyotes, Boston Bruins, New York Islanders and now the Buffalo Sabres. He's also played in the AHL for the Hartford Wolf Pack/Connecticut Whale and Portland Pirates, so I'm guessing it was goal of his to play everywhere in New England at some point...

He is also an Adirondacks and a Rochester team away from playing all over New York State, and with one appearance with the New Jersey Devils could also include all of the NYC's hockey-represented burroughs. I mean, while we're at it...

He doesn't always look like a Vezina winner out there, but his .915 career save percentage and 2.42 GAA are decent for a backup goalie - and that's counting his sub-par season with the Isles last year where he went 8-8-1 with a 3.08 GAA and .889 save percentage in 19 games, which accounts for roughly a quarter of his career NHL games so far.

He won against the Montréal Canadiens tonight, in an entertaining 6-4 game that saw all kinds of goals (from one-timers to penalty shots to the puck hitting a linesman for a bad bounce), with three four players (Sven Andrighetto, Alex Galchenyuk, Marcus Foligno and Evander Kane) having two-goal nights.

It wasn't a stellar night for goaltending, and I had a bit of fun with my friends (one of whom quoted me on Twitter), joking that we were lucky to have two of the 500 best goalies in the world in nets - and that was before Ben Scrivens was replaced with Mike Condon:

"On est vraiment chanceux d'avoir un duel entre deux des 500 meilleurs gardiens au monde ce soir."
- @sebastianhell

— Martin Sasseville (@PuckTaVie) February 13, 2016

In any event, Johnson won, which brings me to card #54, from In The Game's 2010-11 Between The Pipes set (and Future Stars sub-set), which he signed in blue sharpie:

It shows him wearing the now-defunct Whale's green uniform; the team's since gone back to their former moniker, the Wolf Pack. That uniform was just... too green for hockey.

Louis Domingue Autographed Card

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I would like to congratulate Louis Domingue on obtaining his first NHL shutout against the New York Islanders last night, at a time when the Arizona Coyotes really needed it.

It was his first start this season. He'd also won in his first-ever start against the Montréal Canadiens, when he signed this card for me (and two others) in blue sharpie:

It's card #49 from In The Game's 2009-10 Between The Pipes set (and Future Stars sub-set), showing him wearing the Québec Remparts' classic red uniform.

Domingue plays a sound positional game that is made for his size (a smaller-than-his-contemporaries 6'2'', clocking in at 200 pounds of muscle), and he's relatively agile and has quick lateral movements from his strong legs. I foresee him being a starter some day, following in the footsteps of Jake Allen, another former LHJMQ standout currently starring for the St. Louis Blues. Allen was a 2008 draft pick, Domingue was drafted in 2010.

Craig Anderson: 2 Autographed Cards

At this point, many of you realize Craig Anderson is one of my favourite active goalies, because he gets the job done with little fanfare, steadily rocking along on underdog teams and quietly pulling back-to-back shutouts just to bring his stats line back to normal (.921 save percentage, 2.61 GAA, a fifth-in-the-league 508 total saves despite ranking 18th with ''just'' 15 games played) after a sub-par couple of games (and that 7-goal outing against the Nashville Predators especially) had scared off those who just look at the standings but never watch the games.

Anderson's not a nobody: he finished fourth in Vezina voting twice; he outplayed Carey Price both times they faced each other in postseason play (last year, and two years prior to that), and he suited up for Team USA at the World Championships twice (2006 and 2008). But the fact that he plays for a small-town Ottawa Senators team often leaves the goalies playing in the bigger markets (Price, Henrik Lundqvist, Jonathan Quick, Steve Mason) getting more air time than he does.

Speaking of Team USA, here's one of two cards he signed for me in blue sharpie after one (dominating) game versus the Montréal Canadiens during the last playoffs:

It's card #155 from In The Game's 2011-12 Between The Pipes set (part of the Stars And Stripes sub-set), showing a close-up of him and his mask - though it's a picture of him with the Sens, not actually the American team.

Which brings us to card #348 from Panini's 2013-14 Score set, where he's displaying his full mastery of the butterfly move with a save with his left pad, wearing the Senators' red (home) uniform:

This one will be my first entry of Anderson's in my Sens Numbers Project, rocking #41.

He has terrific leg-rebound control; that was a move I used to love doing myself, either sending the puck away to the corners where my defensemen would recuperate it, or if there wasn't any traffic in front of the net and I wanted to show off a bit, I'd kick-pass it the other way to a defenseman who was back-checking so he could send the play back into the offensive zone right away.

As I've mentioned before, I also (mostly) wore Brian's equipment, and I liked to keep my glove hand lower than most goalies do nowadays, because moving it upwards quickly is more natural than sending it down, so I'd keep it just above parallel to the ice, say at 30-35 degrees, which means that on plays where it was shot low, that picture is pretty much what I looked like - except with a Vaughn blocker and Victoriaville stick. And a full-cage Jofa helmet instead of a mask.

Anderson has two more years past this season as the Sens' #1 goalie; currently standing at 34 years old, he should be exiting his prime by then and might be ready, mentally, to mentor the Sens' next budding star in nets, which looks right now to possibly be Matt O'Connor.

Brian Elliott Autographed Card

The St. Louis Blues just cannot catch a break in net; this time, their "goalie oft he future" Jake Allen has been taken out of training camp with back spasms, an issue that has a tendency to become chronic with athletes over time.

That means Brian Elliott gets to be top dog again, though with GM Doug Armstrong and head coach Ken Hitchcock, who knows how long that'll last. We are, after all, talking about a team whose goalie made it to the All-Star Game, was confirmed as a starter two weeks ahead of the playoffs, then was stuck to the bench when they came along. The same team that wasn't content with having playoff hero Jaroslav Halak because he'd never played over 60 regular-season games in a single season (and who has since made the New York Islanders into contenders).

Here's the thing with Elliott: is he one of the 10 best goalies in the world? No. But do you need a top-10 goalie to win the Stanley Cup? No. Sure, Jonathan Quick and Corey Crawford do rank highly in my opinion, but Antti Niemi doesn't; neither did Chris Osgood. And Henrik Lundqvist (the best in the world), Pekka Rinne (the runner-up) and Carey Price (the best last year) have all yet to see their names engraved on the famed salad bowl.

Do I think Elliott is good enough to be a starter in today's NHL? Absolutely. Here's a list of teams for which he'd be the clear #1 in my opinion: the Blues, Edmonton Oilers, Dallas Stars, Toronto Maple Leafs, Arizona Coyotes, San Jose Sharks, Vancouver Canucks, Calgary Flames, Buffalo Sabres, Winnipeg Jets, Carolina Hurricanes, and Minnesota Wild. And it'd be a close battle with the Detroit Red Wings and maybe even the Anaheim Ducks. He can stop pucks well, is what I'm saying.

I got this card in the mail at my old place, but I'm not sure who sent it to me (it's not a TTM return, as I've never owned this card in its regular form):

It's card #7 from In The Game's 2008-09 Between The Pipes set (part of the Future Stars sub-set), showing him wearing the Binghamton Senators' red (away) uniform. He signed it on-card in blue sharpie.

Richard Sévigny Autographed Card

A silver medalist at the 1978 World Juniors with Team Canada, Richard Sévigny was drafted 124th overall by the Montréal Canadiens in 1977, a year in which they also drafted fellow goalies Rob Holland (64th), Barry Borrett (152nd), Mark Holden (160th), Carey Walker (174th), Jean Bélisle (179th), and Bob Daly (180th), literally stocking up at the position.

He would appear in 11 games with the Habs in 1979-80, but really started to make his mark the following season (sharing the Vezina Trophy with Bunny Larocque and Denis Herron in the process), but because he'd served as a backup in the previous season's Stanley Cup run, he had his named engraved on Lord Stanley's Mug before even playing in a single NHL game.

One of his most memorable appearances came in the infamous Good Friday Game (''Le Match Du Vendredi Saint'') which pitted the Canadiens against provincial rivals the Québec Nordiques in which two bench-clearing brawls occured. Sévigny fought the Nordiques' Clint Malarchuk that night and was thrown out of the game.

Ironically, he signed with Québec as a free agent two years later, his workload decreasing with each passing season in the white-and-blue, going from 20 to 11 to just 4 in 1986-87.

He coached in France for four seasons upon retiring, then worked as a homeroom attendant in a Montréal suburb high school until 2012.

I'd never met him when he played, nor when I played, but did so at many charity events where he was a featured guest. It was at one of these last year that he signed this 2012-12 Between The Pipes card (#140 of the Decades - The 1980s sub-set) from In The Game, showing his Jofa helmet while with the Nordiques:

Most goalies in the 1980s evolved from a helmet to a mask, but Sévigny went the other way, as he'd worn a complete face mask in his days with the Canadiens:

That was a great look! He was also the last Hab to wear #33 before Patrick Roy, whom it was retired for. Of note that Sévigny signed the Nordiques card above in thin blue sharpie and tagged it with #33, but he wore #1 with the Nordiques.

Rollie Melanson Autograph Card

Roland ''Rollie'' Melanson's life reads like hockey's version of a Mark Twain book, a plain-spoken Acadian man from small-town New Brunswick, who lives through great highs, some lows, but tries to keep an even keel all the time, despite not always being completely understood anywhere he went.

You want highs? CHL rookie of the year (Ken McKenzie Trophy, with the Indianapolis Checkers in 1980-81), for starters, then a Jennings Trophy, a Second-Team All-Star nod and a second-place finish among Vezina voting in the NHL (1982-83, with the New York Islanders), followed by a 10th-place finish in the Vezina race the following season. Oh, and three Stanley Cups as part of their dynasty.

You want lows? He spent parts of 5 seasons with 4 different AHL teams in the decade following that, finishing his career with a 1992-93 stint in the then-Colonial Hockey League (ColHL), which folded in 2006-07 after a decade of being called the United Hockey League (UHL), and 7 games in the AHL with the Saint John Flames in 1993-94. Granted, he was named the ColHL's playoff MVP as his Brantford Smokes won the championship, but still.

Which is an odd turn of events in and of itself, considering he stole the show at the 1991-92 Montréal Canadiens' training camp, posting two shutouts and two one-goal games in four starts, essentially blocking the Habs' try at a youth movement and stalling four kids in the AHL (André Racicot, Frédéric Chabot, Jean-Claude Bergeron and Les Kuntar). The regular season, however, only allowed him to go 5-3-0 in 9 games, with a good 2.68 GAA and a .887 save percentage.

After retiring, he became a goaltending coach with the Habs, turning Jeff Hackett into a top-10 goalie, helping José Theodore become a Hart and Vezina winner, making Cristobal Huet a Crozier Award contender, and starting Jaroslav Halak and Carey Price on their merry ways.

He then moved onto the Vancouver Canucks, where former Vezina finalist Roberto Luongo and Cory Schneider had some good seasons, and Ryan Miller is shining anew this year.

Again, highs (great individual seasons) and lows (getting fired from one spot, two huge goaltending controversies - arguably the two biggest of the last two decades - and some fall-from-grace seasons as well). And weirdness, such as when he gave an interview to a small paper in his hometown and claimed Price had lost his game when he left, rightfully so to some extent, if you forget that the slide had actually started under Melanson's reign. What was weirdest wasn't the candor with which he talked about a former student of his, but the fact that he's under contract from one organization talking about a player under contract with another.

But that's Rollie The Goalie for you: a whole mess of Frenglish, highs and lows, and a gift for hyperbole. He didn't revolutionize the art of goaltending as François Allaire has, but he can be credited with perfecting one move most NHL goalies started doing after Hackett/Theodore did, and that's putting the opposite pad down along the ice when the puck's in the corner, protecting the bottom of the net from oddball deflections, also known as Dead-Arm + One Knee Down, which from the angle below also covers the five-hole area and barely leaves the CPSG (top-corner on the blocker side) open:

And so it is a pleasure to share this beautiful 2011-12 Between The Pipes (10th Anniversary) card (#A-RM of the Authentic GoalieGraphs and Decades - The 1980s subsets) from In The Game, showing him in the Islanders' classic blue (away) uniform:

It's signed on-sticker in black sharpie, and you can decipher almost every letter except the last three. As a kid, I started out wearing one of those Cooper helmets with the cage.