Duncan Keith Jersey Card

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Colour me baffled once again by Edmonton Oilers GM Ken Holland, who traded promising young prospect Caleb Jones and a third-round pick to the Chicago Blackhawks for the totality of Duncan Keith's remaining two years, $5.53M cap hit and all. Keith had shown a desire to play in Western Canada or with the Seattle Kraken, which left just the Oilers, Calgary Flames and Vancouver Canucks as possible suitors, and the Canucks and Flames were reportedly not interested. It seemed like Hawks GM Stan Bowman had his hands tied, but he may actually have been in possession of pictures of Holland in the same position that he didn't want to see released to the public.

Don't get me wrong - I LOVE Duncan Keith. He's a first-ballot Hall Of Famer, a two-time Norris Trophy winner (in the Nicklas Lidstrom era no less), and a three-time Stanley Cup Champion whose Conn Smythe performance in 2015 was the most dominant performance I've ever seen by a skater during a playoff series - more so than Chris Pronger and Erik Karlsson's failed Cup runs, more than any forwards I remember (which admittedly, because I was too young and only started paying serious attention to hockey in the Spring of 1986, doesn't include Wayne Gretzky's two Smythe-worthy performances although it does include Mario Lemieux's).

But he's 37 and will turn 38 later this week, he has been trending downwards for eight seasons, with the last four being particularly painful in terms of possession statistics, though his "real" stats in 2018-19 were pretty good. Which means the Oilers should have gotten the Hawks to at least retain a couple of millions for each season, or half his salary in Year One and none for the last... anything, really.

Keith is no longer the first-pairing defenseman he used to be, he will have to get sheltered minutes with someone who can both keep up with and help him (fix his mistakes). There are rumours Ryan Suter, Keith Yandle and others might get bought out; perhaps waiting on these options to present themselves would have diminished the price paid or improved the return.

But let's harken back to when no one knew the heights he would reach after being drafted in the second round (54th overall) four years prior, on card #RT-DK from Upper Deck's 2005-06 Series 2 set and Rookies Threads sub-set:

It shows him wearing the Hawks' classic red jersey, with a matching swatch (possibly from the same photo shoot).

Duncan Keith Jersey Card

I talked about my keeper pool a few days ago in this Dustin Brown post, and I thought I could share a bit more about my team now that one of my star defensemen, Duncan Keith, is out with a knee injury.

First off, here are the rules: points count as one, regardless of who gets them, or whether they're goals or assists. Defensemen, however, have their minuses count against them. Goalies get two points per win and five per shutout.

Each team has three centers, six wingers, six defensemen and three goalies. The top two centers, four wingers and four defensemen count, as well as the top goalie count for each team.

Each year, we keep two centers, four wingers, three defenders and a goalie, and draft the rest; players on their entry-level deal are exempt from being dropped.

This year, after trading Ryan Getzlaf and Corey Perry for Henrik Lundqvist and Jakub Voracek, I elected to keep the following players:

C: Jason Spezza, Alex Galchenyuk
W: Voracek, Marian Gaborik, Valeri Nichushkin, James Neal
D: Erik Karlsson, Keith, Cam Fowler
G: Lundqvist

Which means I dropped the following players:
C: none
W: Jason Pominville, Cory Conacher
D: Jack Johnson (for the third time in four years), Dmitri Kulikov (for the fourth time), Andrej Sekera
G: Semyon Varlamov, Roberto Luongo, Jake Allen

And I stocked up on the following:
C: Sam Bennett
W: Artemi Panarin, Sergei Plotnikov
D: Noah Hanifin, David Savard, Shane Gostisbehere
G: Craig Anderson, John Gibson

So, yeah, I think I'll have a pretty competitive team. Also, because Keith fell to long-term injury, I was allowed to pick up Jay Bouwmeester from waivers, so hopefully it won't hurt so bad (though he was a minus-2 in his first game on my team).

As you can see from my previous posts, I mostly draft players I like; this year, I had targeted Panarin, Bennett and Anderson above all (I had the third pick of each round), and I would have been fine with taking either of my goalies from last year back.

I've been trying to get my hands on P.K. Subban as well, to have the top trifecta on defense, but I'm also fine with Karlsson, Keith and Fowler.

Keith, you'll recall, was the beast who played an ungodly 30 minutes per game in last year's playoffs on route to securing the Conn Smythe Trophy and helping the Chicago Blackhawks win the Stanley Cup for the third time in six years.

He was already elite, with two Nicklas Lidstrom-era Norris trophies on his resume, but adding the Conn Smythe will cement his place in the Hall Of Fame when he retires.

You can imagine how delighted I was to fall upon this card of his in a group opening of Upper Deck's 2013-14 Series 1 cards last year:

It's card #GJ-DK of the UD Game Jersey sub-set, and shows him wearing the Hawks' white (away) uniform, with a black game-worn jersey swatch incorporated into the card.