Nicolas Petan Jersey Card

There is a tendency in sports reporting that I don't like and is being normalized these days, which is to attack someone (or a group of people) at the bottom of the food chain to send a message to the entity or entities up top, and the worst of the worst - as always - comes from the Toronto media.

Not only do they concentrate on their own team too much, they also over-emphasize the importance of the Toronto Maple Leafs (far from the most storied franchise in the league, in fact more like the team with the most and longest sequences of irrelevance), but they live in a bubble where they keep repeating the same message over and over where it actually becomes a narrative and a self-fulfilling prophecy.

Too cryptic?

Think of last summer's narrative: The overpaid John Tavares and Auston Matthews inspired Mitch Marner to force the Leafs to hand him the same type of overpaid contract, but with the overpaid William Nylander in the mix, they won't have enough money to match the high-powered offense with a top-notch defense, and they will lack depth.

Fine.

On the other hand, teams with great defence (the Nashville Predators come to mind) rarely can afford 50-goal scorers and 100-point forwards (except maybe the Calgary Flames). Case in point: the Vegas Golden Knights and Pittsburgh Penguins.

But I digress. I was talking about the bubble: TSN (half-owners of the team) talks about the lack of depth, Sportsnet (half owners of the team and sole owners of the national TV rights) talks about a lack of depth; the Globe And Mail and sports radio talks about a lack of depth and hints at a general lack of talent; the National Post says it's the most disappointing Leafs team of the past 20 years; TSN gets more critical, Sportsnet gets more critical, Hockey Night In Canada points to why they're in a critical situation, sports radio wants GM Kyle Dubas' head while Sportsnet asks for head coach Mike Babcock's - the same Babcock they were so adamant was the exact person the team needed when they signed him - now that his patience and rebuild process and plan has come to fruition, and TSN Radio goes and says the team has "no talent".

They're not wrong on the initial, original premise: Tavares was overpaid to be convinced to leave the New York Islanders in the midst of his prime at age 28 because he was eventually going to represent a reasonable portion of the salary cap when the young guns also reach their prime; Matthews and Marner - at least a couple of years away from their prime - are already getting paid for what they'll be expected to provide when they're 25 and 26 years old; Nylander should never have been given that money, he'll likely never be worth it; there is less money left to hire 19 other players at a value that most pother teams will be spending on 19 players.

All true.

But some players accepted to play for their hometown team at a rebate - Jason Spezza, for instance, taking a 90% pay cut to join a contending club and provide leadership. Sure, he's far removed from his prime, but for what he can provide (he's coming off two straight 8-goal, 26-and 27-point seasons, so it'd be reasonable to expect 5-7 goals and 22-25 points on his part with favourable matchups), but you'd have to think the Montréal Canadiens or Ottawa Senators would have paid double for what he brings, to provide their young players with a lifetime's worth of experience from top-rated prospect to second-liner to first-liner to centre of the best line in the NHL to captain to depth piece to checking centre. Contracts like his enable so0me extravagance in other areas.

What I don't like is how it spirals into "no talent" territory.

1: Fuck You. 2: What?

Spezza is a 1000-game veteran with over 900 points; Jake Muzzin is an Olympic gold medal winner with Team Canada; Alex Kerfoot will make more mistakes than your usual third-line centre, but he'll chip in for 40-50 points, 20% more than is expected from his position; Dmytro Timashov is 23, in his first NHL season, and was a two-point-per-game player in the LHJMQ; that "no good" Cody Ceci is a +6; Frédérik Gauthier is a former first-rounder who was always groomed to be a fourth-liner for this team, so I don't know what else people were expecting; Michael Hutchinson is in his fourth organization and third NHL team (he never played for the Boston Bruins but had a short stint with the Florida Panthers and played with the Winnipeg Jets in parts of five seasons), meaning three teams so far have seen him as a better option than their own current #3 goalies; Rasmus Sandin, just 19 years old, former first-rounder; Nick Shore, veteran of nearly 250 NHL games.

These aren't your beer league retirees or ECHL-caliber youngsters, these are ten of 700 players who will play in the best league in the world this year, possibly among the 1000 best at what they do on the planet. I know for a fact that no one in the National Post is among the top 1000 at what they do.

Which brings me to Nicolas Petan, former second-round pick of the Winnipeg Jets (43rd overall in 2013), acquired by the Leafs at last year's trade deadline and extended for two seasons near the league minimum who was quickly recalled early in the month. He has an assist in 4 games so far, which projects to 20 points over a full season while playing under 10 minutes per, but he was a point-per-game player in the AHL (52 points in 52 games) with the Manitoba Moose in 2017-18.

He has talent, he has guts, but Babcock won't play him because he's 5'9" despite his 180 pounds. But he's there waiting for his chance, like Martin St-Louis, Tyler Johnson, Yanni Gourde, David Desharnais and Paul Byron before him.

Journalists and pundits need to chill out and realize we're just 13 games in - time to reflect, time to prepare for the 20-game/quarter-season look back, but no time to panic or ask for heads to roll, especially those who have no stake in it.

Here is Petan wearingt the Jets' white (away) uniform, on the bronze insert version of card #150 from Upper Deck's 2015-16 SP Game-Used Edition collection and Authentic Rookies sub-set:

It features a dark blue event-worn jersey swatch and is numbered 241/399.

Tomas Tatar Jersey Card

Initially thought of as a throw-in in the Max Pacioretty trade (where the Montréal Canadiens also grabbed top prospect Nick Suzuki and a 2019 second-rounder - Samuel Fagemo - from the Vegas Golden Knights), Tomas Tatar outplayed the former Habs captain - on a far weaker team - in almost every statistical category, from the standard goals (25 vs 22), assists (33 vs 18), points (58 vs 40), +/- (+21 on a team that failed to make the playoffs vs -13 on a team that had gone to the Stanley Cup Final the previous season), Corsi For (59.6 vs 53.5) and Corsi For Relative (7.9 to -1.9).

And to anyone wanting to make the assessment that Pacioretty missed many games to injury, the points-per-game ratio is still very uneven at 0.73 vs 0.61 in favour of the Slovak.

They are very different players. Tatar is reserved, quiet, as most smart two-way forwards are, while Pacioretty has been nurtured like a superstar for his entire career. Over the years, Pacioretty has both become more selfish (oftentimes spending an entire penalty kill in centre ice waiting for a breakaway pass instead of helping out defensively, when he used to be very good in his own zone in the past) and shown an inability to withstand pressure - such as the captaincy and playoff expectations in Montréal), so signing a huge contract as soon as he got to Vegas was bound to choke him up.

The advantage of that came in the postseason: paired with elite two-way players like Paul Stastny and Mark Stone, his trio was seen as the "second line" behind that of Jonathan Marchessault, Reilly Smith and William Karlsson, which eased their workload and expectations. They were able to take advantage of weaker competition and dominate the San Jose Sharks, who had to cheat their way into a series win.

Tatar is more consistent, like a left wing version of Tomas Plekanec. Except for one exceptioonally poor season in 2017-18, he'll get you at least 45 points, sometimes up to 55-60, and score 20-25 goals. He won't make many mistakes eitehr in the offensive zone or defensively, but he'll be so methodological it'll almost be boring. His goals will come via bulk - his shot % is usually along the lines of last season's 12.5% - and will rarely be "sniper"-type shots.

But boring and effective has been Montréal's motto since they failed to land Vincent Lecavalier in 2008, so it's a perfect match.

Here he is wearing another classic Original Six uniform, that of the Detroit Red Wings, on card #67 from Upper Deck's 2015-16 SP Game-Used Edition set:

While he's shown wearing Detroit's white (now-away) uniform, the game-worn jersey swatch may very well be from the red (home) jersey, although no one really knows for sure.

So far in his career, Tatar has won the Calder Cup in the AHL as well as two silver medals, one at the 2012 World Championships, representing Team Slovakia, and another at the 2016 World Cup, with Team Europe.

Colton Teubert Autograph Card

My (remaining) childhood team - the Edmonton Oilers - has eliminated last year's Western Conference finalist San Jose Sharks in a tiring, tight but predictable series and will now face the tougher, bigger, faster and meaner Anaheim Ducks.

The Oilers' defense has not looked this good in at least an entire decade, and team chemistry is at its most cohesive since the 2005-06 Stanley Cup Final run. Even the Taylor Hall for Adam Larsson trade is looking great (addition by subtraction in team spirit and cleaning up the air, adding a quality defensive defenseman, and making room to sign a more physical top-six left winger in Milan Lucic are three huge victory points for Edmonton).

Such a trade would not have been necessary, however, had Colton Teubert panned out as the team expected him to when they traded for him with the Los Angeles Kings (along with first-round and second-round picks, for Dustin Penner). The Oilers took a chance on the 6'4", 210-pound former first round pick (13th overall in 2008) because he'd previously been teammates with Jordan Eberle with the WHL's Regina Pats, making the All-Star Game and having Regina mayor Pat Fiacco proclaim January 8, 2010 as "Jordan Eberle and Colten Teubert Day". Yeah, that happened.

However, the Oilers were pretty bad, and their AHL affiliate Oklahoma City Barons weren't great either, and his development stagnated; he fell into the minuses, took a lot of penalties, and ultimately was forced to sign in Germany to pursue his dream of playing professional hockey. And he's actually doing fine there:

from HockeyDB.com

He has won gold (2008 World U-18 Championships and 2009 World Juniors) and silver (2010 World Juniors) medals playing for Team Canada and, at age 27, seems to have found his groove.

Here he is as a tough Oilers prospect, wearing the classic blue (now-home) uniform on the Bronze variant of card #MM-30 from Panini's 2013-14 Titanium set and Metallic Marks sub-set:

It features a blue-sharpied on-sticker autograph.

Philippe Cornet Autograph Card

I'm a pretty big Edmonton Oilers fan (yes, even to this day) and was surprised this winter when I kept coming up on Philippe Cornet cards in almost every brand I picked up. This guy was either a huge prospect I'd slept on, or the Bob Corkum of his generation. The truth probably lies somewhere in the middle.

He had a semi-distinguished career in Juniors with the LHJMQ's Rimouski Océanic and Rouyn-Noranda Huskies, improving every year and going from 21 points to 49 and 77 twice; he was also a point-per-game playoff performer, which probably helped when the Oilers took their 5th-round pick to make him the 133rd draftee of the class of 2008.

His first AHL season with the Oklahoma City Barons wasn't all that spectacular (7 goals and 23 points in 60 games), but his 24 goals in his sophomore year got him both a couple of call-ups to the NHL and an AHL All-Star Game nod.

That year, he showed he could find the back of the net, but also proved he could be a nifty passer against adults at the pro level. It seems every article about Barons games has a mention of his making a perfect pass through three pairs of skates directly on a teammate's stick blade. He also showed some courage and determination, always the first guy to jump in the corner or on the boards to wrestle the puck from much bigger opponents - though not always succeeding.

During his three years with the Barons, he made the playoffs twice, registering 4 goals, 12 assists and 16 points in 31 games - decent numbers, if not star-caliber, which may be why the Oilers chose not to re-sign him last season. Instead, he signed an AHL deal with the San Antonio Rampage (the Florida Panthers' AHL affiliate), who traded him mid-season to the Charlotte Checkers, home to the Carolina Hurricanes' prospects.

The NHL being an Old Boys' country club, though, generally, when a player doesn't make the roster on non-playoff teams, he's soon forgotten about, which may eventually lead to his moving to Europe for a higher level of play, pay, and lifestyle. Cornet arguably has the talent to be very good at a level just one notch below the NHL; where that may be, we'll just have to wait and see.

In the meantime, I can cross #51 off my Oilers Numbers Project with card #MM-42 of Panini's 2013-14 Titanium set (part of the Metallic Marks sub-set, the Bronze variant), with a thin blue-sharpied sticker autograph with his jersey number included:

I'll say this about the product: boxes like this one, where you get 20 cards in total for roughly $100 (sometimes a bit more) are the main reason why I usually stick to $30 boxes like Score, O-Pee-Chee, Victory and the like; there is no way I would have paid $5 for any of the cards I pulled, though I was happy I got to further my Oilers project along, and I got a few jersey cards of players I like, but could have done without.

What I usually do is get in groups, where, say, 10 or 15 of us will get together and split 5, 10 or 15 boxes (whatever divides ok), and keep whatever interests us the most; people like getting into these groups with me because I won't call dibs on the Crosbys (there are never any anyway), though we usually make a deal where if one very valuable card is pulled, we just sell it on Ebay and split the money.

Anyhow, I'd rather get two autographs and a few hundred ''regular'' cards for $30 than five sub-par ''hits'' with already-bent corners (such as the top-right one on this card) for $100, which is a whole day's work for me before taxes.