Caps Preview: Alex Ovechkin Swatch 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)

This will likely be the preface to all of this year's Season Preview posts: I liked doing last year's format, so I'll be doing it the same way this season as well, partly because of that but also because as a father of a toddler and a baby, I just do not have enough time to write two separate posts per day on each blog. I'll copy these on each one instead. Like last year, 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 training camp being set to start, several players haven't found a team yet, many RFAs haven't signed with their respective teams, and a few clubs are currently above the salary cap, which means there is much maneuvering left to do.

Key exits: Brenden Dillon (D), Craig Anderson (G), Michael Raffl (LW), Zdeno Chara (D)

Key Arrivals: Matt Irwin (D), xxx (LW), xxx (C/LW), xxx (C), xxx (LW), xxx (D), xxx (D), xxx (G)

Top prospects: Connor McMichael (C), Hendrix Lapierre (C), Martin Fehervary (D), Alexander Alexeyev (D), Vincent Iorio (D), Damien Riat (LW), Aliaksei Protas (C), Brent Johnson (D), Brett Leason (RW), Kody Clark (RW), Lucas Johansen (D)

Sure, the Washington Capitals' stars are all in their 30s, they have few top-tier prospects that have Toronto-based pundits salivating and have exited the playoffs early every year since their 2018 Stanley Cup win, but this nucleus remains rock-solid with the likes of Nicklas Backstrom, Alex Ovechkin, Evgeny Kuznetsov, Anthony Mantha, Tom Wilson, T.J. Oshie, John Carlson and Dmitry Orlov. The goaltending position is also in good hands with Ilya Samsonov and Vitek Vanecek.

What makes their odds look good:
They can outscore the opposition like few teams can and have better goaltending than the Toronto Maple Leafs. If someone in the Atlantic can eliminate the Tampa Bay Lightning, a team from the Metropolitan Division could make it to the Cup Final.

Question marks: A lot of their firepower is tied into a handful of players, who account for a lot of the team's cap space. There are depth issues, and any injury troubles would mean a huge drop in the standings for the Caps.

Outlook:
This team hired Peter Laviolette as head coach because it is still hungry for a Cup. Regular-season seeding doesn't have to matter much, the postseason is how this team will be judged, now and forever.

Prediction:
Third in the Metropolitan Division.

Fresh off a five-year deal that will realistically lead him to breaking Wayne Gretzky's career goals record, Ovechkin is a man on (another) mission. And while the chase for Gretzky's goals record is huge in itself, Ovie is also chasing Sidney Crosby's two undeserved Conn Smythes, a gimme from a handful of Toronto-based journalists who didn't want to give Phil Kessel his due. Should Ovechkin get a second one, it might even force the Hall Of Fame to waive its three-year waiting period to get him in.

Here he is wearing the team's dreadful red (home) Reebok Edge uniform from a few years back, on the swatch version of card #73 from Panini's 2010-11 Luxury Suite collection:

It features a white game-worn jersey swatch. I got this one on Ebay for just over five bucks; its usual book value is closer to $40-50.

Ron Hextall Autographed Card

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

I have to admit I was pretty shocked when the Philadelphia Flyers fired GM and former star goalie Ron Hextall in November 2018, even more so when they replaced him with former Minnesota Wild GM Chuck Fletcher. I was sad that neither Hextall nor Sean Burke had been considered as GM of the Seattle Kraken, as both, to me, seem to have the credentials needed to build a team and make trades with fellow GMs that could be mutually beneficial.

I was intrigued but not as surprised when Pittsburgh Penguins GM Jim Rutherford resigned early this season, not so much because of his age (he did admit he was willing to listen to offers to get back in the game elsewhere) but mostly because people in his position are rarely willing to let go and relinquish a position so closely removed from back-to-back championships despite the clear signs of a regression. In Rutherford's case, he churned out talent such as not one but two #1 goalies in Marc-André Fleury and Matt Murray, as well as championship veterans Patric Hornqvist, Phil Kessel, Olli Maatta, Ron Hainsey, and Ian Cole, and acquired veteras Tanner Pearson, Erik Gudbranson, Alex Galchenyuk, Nick Bjugstad, Jamie Oleksiak, Joseph Blandisi, and Ryan Reaves. Two of them - Kessel and Murray - had delivered Conn Smythe-worthy performances under his reign. I guess he had a knack for not gettting too attached, although he did keep core veterans Sidney Crosby, Evgeni Malkin and Kris Letang on board despite increasing rumours to the contrary.

It was a complete shocker, however, when Hextall was annointed to replace Rutherford in Pittsburgh - Philadelphia's main rival - until I remembered his father, Bryan Hextall Jr., had played for the team in the early 1970s, with the likes of Syl Apps and Jean Pronovost, during a relatively bleak period of the team's history.

It will fall on Hextall's shoulders to decide whether a full (three-to-five-year) rebuild is in the cards, or if a simple two-year retool might do the trick. One thing's for sure, he built the current-day Flyers and the Stanley Cup-winning Los Angeles Kings mostly from the ground up with a couple of savvy trades (including trading away Brayden Schenn twice) thrown in for good measure. This is perhaps this core's last chance at bringing a fourth Cup home before it gets separated.

Despite his also suiting up for my favourite team - the Québec Nordiques - and the New York Islanders, when I think "Hextall", I think "Vezina", "Conn Smythe", and "Flyers", with the arrow mask, as seen on card #41 from O-Pee-Chee's 1990-91 O-Pee-Chee Premier set:

Although I had a few dozen copies of that card in my youth, I actually bought this signed copy on Ebay under $10; I doubt any future versions for sale online will be below $25. I'm particularly fond of the "All the best" mention prior to his signature, such warmth and class to take the time to add a polite and encouraging message, light years away from the fierce temperament he displayed on the ice and that inspired my own play and demeanor, which was modeled on him, Patrick Roy and Burke.

Ducks Preview: John Gibson Jersey 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)

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.

The Anaheim Ducks' rebuild is taking longer than expected because the likes of Sam Steel, Max Jones and Troy Terry have been unable to have enough of an impact at the NHL level to steal ice time away from Ryan Getzlaf, Adam Henrique, Rickard Rackell and Jakob Silfverberg, and the team's nucleus remained at the 40-point mark; the team's overall offense ranked at the bottom-three of the NHL in most categories for the third year in a row.

What makes their odds look good:
John Gibson is one goalie who can give Connor Hellebuyck a run for his money as the best goaltender in the world. Trevor Zegras (thirs in NCAA rookie points), Maxime Comtois (second on the San Diego Gulls in points per game), and Jamie Drysdale (point-per-game defenseman in the OHL at 17 years old) look like solid prospects.

Question marks:
Is GM Bob Murray too close to his players and too committed to keeping them? Is Dallas Eakins an NHL-level head coach? Is Kevin Shattenkirk going to be able to be the guy in Anaheim when he couldn't be with the New York Rangers?

Outlook:
Whether they want to admit it or not, the Ducks have been rebuilding since 2015, trading veterans for younger talent, and either missing the playoffs altogether (2018-19, 2019-20) or getting ousted in the first round(2015-16, 2017-18). They just haven't been able to develop their young talent into elite players the way other teams have.

Prediction:
Seventh in the West Division.

Last season notwithstanding because of injuries and Covid-19, Gibson has been one of the best goalies in the NHL since joining the league full-time in 2015-16, with elite save percentages (.920, .924, .926, .917) despite playing in 3000 minutes in three of those seasons, the 2017-18 season being particularly brutal on that front, posting a 2.43 goals-against average and a 25.3 goals saved above average mark in 60 starts, for 1733 saves and a .926 save percentage to show for it. His 31-18-7 record that year was mind-boggling and he should have finished third in Hart voting, behind Nathan MacKinnon (who should have won) and Taylor Hall (who actually did). He also should have been in the running for the Vezina, with Hellebuyck and Marc-André Fleury (Pekka Rinne won it).

I believe he will be the reason Anaheim doesn't linger in the Western Division cellar, probably with a save percentage around .925 and some 20 wins and maybe 3 or 4 shutouts in the shortened season. He's simply that good. Here he is wearing the Ducks' black (home) uniform, on card #46 (Red Rainbow Jersey Parallel) from Upper Deck's 2019-20 Allure collection, featuring a matching game-worn jersey swatch:

I got it on Ebay for less than $10.

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!

Golden Knights Preview: Alex Pietrangelo Jersey 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. Two more caveats: at this point, the NHL has not even confirmed the division make-ups yet despite the season being set to start a month from now, and several impact players such as 25-to-30-goal scorer Mike Hoffman and 20-goal journeyman forward Anthony Duclair, among others, 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.

One of those teams in cap cunnundrums is the Vegas Golden Knights.

I mentioned many times how I fear the Golden Knights' apparent thirst for quick success instead of methodical building makes for a clan of mercenaries more than a family or team, and how I am worried that their constant trading away of players on long-term deals for slight upgrades or to create cap space will eventually lead to free agents opting not to sign in the desert without full control of their destinies with no-movement clauses, but for the time being, the team remains a true contender, which is why they were able to sign the off-season's prized free agent, former St. Louis Blues captain Alex Pietrangelo, despite already having a younger version of him on the roster in Shea Theodore. It cost them their second-line centre and a second-pairing defender, but they feel it's worth the gamble (and probably like they can acquire another one at the trade deadline, because GM Kelly McCrimmon apparently thinks he's running a game of NHL21 instead of an actual NHL team).

What makes their odds look good:
Two #1 goalies in a season filled with back-to-backs, two #1 defensemen on the right side, a 30-goal scorer and four 20-goal scorers last season up front, building up a wealth of playoff experience in just three short seasons of existence.

Question marks:
Max Pacioretty had a knack for disappearing in the playoffs and lacking in leadership when he captained the Montréal Canadiens, and last season showed more of the same; for all the bombast about their top six forwards, it's important to note that not a single one of them was a point-per-game player last season or the year before; as a matter of fact, the only one who came close in 2018-19 is Paul Stastny, now with the Winnipeg Jets. You may also call me a Peter DeBoer detractor.

Outlook:
I'm disappointed that they're run on the "shiny new toy" model, but they're still stacked with proven talent that goes relatively deep and for two thirds of almost every game, the opposition's chances of scoring goals is close to zero with Robin Lehner and Marc-André Fleury playing behind Theodore, Pietrangelo, Brayden McNabb, Alec Martinez and Zac Whitecloud. That counts for something.

There are essentially three groups in the Pacific Division: the elite teams (Vegas and the Colorado Avalanche, deeper than the Golden Knights and with higher-end talent), the other contenders (the Blues and Dallas Stars), and the teams hovering near or below .500 (the Arizona Coyotes, Los Angeles Kings, Anaheim Ducks and San Jose Sharks). It would normally take a perfect storm for Vegas to miss the postseason. Or DeBoer.

Prediction:
Second in the Pacific Division.

Pietrangelo is now 30 years old; he normally has two to four years of elite hockey left in him if you do not believe him to already be on a downward slope, and the fact that he finished fourth in Norris voting last season for the second time of his career seems to point in that direction, as was his rise back to the 50-point plateau after topping out at 41 the year before, but there are also signs that he's running out of breath.

Hockey Night In Canada analyst Kelly Hrudey and I seem to be the only ones who noticed how exhausted he looked for most of the Blues' Cup run in 2019, but take a look at his postseason ice time first, the largest of two columns I highlighted below:

Between the ages of 24 and 28, he would normally play over 28 minutes per game in the playoffs, even more than 30 in 2013-14; the year the Blues took home the Stanley Cup, his ice time had fallen to 25:45, and it dropped to 25:12 last year. To be contenders, they had to play him less.

Now have a look at the last column, the giveaways. He rarely made mistakes with the puck in the 2014, 2015 and 2017 playoffs, but made one nearly every game in the last two. His +/- stats are also scary: despite being on the ice for 6 points in 9 games in 2020, he was not a positive factor for his team; despite scoring three even-strength goals for his team and contributing to 19 total goals for the team that won four rounds of hockey, winning four games in each and never losing more than three in any, he was just a +5 in 2019. Worse still, he was in the minuses in 2017.

There are signs of a decline and we may not be looking at a Hall Of Famer, although he's had a terrific career with a Cup win, three top-five Norris finishes (never in the top-three however), two All-Star Games, three end-of-season Second All-Star Team selections, and gold medals at the World Juniors (2009), World Cup (2016) and Olympics (2014).

Here he is from a time where he was coming into his own on the Blues' blue line, wearig St. Louis' white (away) uniform on card #GJ-AP from Upper Deck's 2011-12 Series 1 set and UD Game Jersey sub-set:

It features a blue game-worn jersey swatch from the arms or back. I got it from Ebay under $5 for this very piece.

Evgeni Malkin Jersey Card

The next time we'll see live hockey being played is pretty much up in the air at the moment, with all Europeans leagues now shut down, the Juniors leagues on hiatus and the AHL and NHL still tentative about their own returns to play and whether they'll play full or shortened seasons.

I thought this was as good a time as any to open up about my own collecting life in the meantime.

A few months ago, I watched my internet buddy Sal Barry break open a couple of boxes of Upper Deck's 2019-20 Ice cards with Puck Junk mate Tim Parish where Tim pulled a Nick Suzuki card, saying it was chipped and offering it up for trade.

I mistakenly thought it was a jersey card, so I offered a ten-year-old Evgeni Malkin Panini jersey card for it, which was accepted. A week and ahalf later, the Suzuki card was on my desk, looking great despite not being a swatch card at all; I plan on getting it signed by the man himself eventually, though.

The only problem is, the Malkin (and additional autographed Eric Tangradi cards I had added as a bonus for the Pittsburgh Penguins fan I was trading with) never got to their destination.

It doesn't happen often, but it does sometimes.

I worked out a deal that I'd get him a new Malkin to repalce it, so I found a similar one, with a gold swatch instead of a blue one, which I bought on Ebay. Except... it never got to me, which meant I could never send it to Tim. It took nearly a month for the seller to pay me back.

So I bought him another - more expensive - one to replace that one, which replaced another one. Who knew that, technically, Nick Suzuki would be worth three Evgeni Malkins?

And so I present you with Malkin #3, card #24 from Upper Deck's 2018-19 Premier collection and Jersey sub-set:

It shows #71 wearing the Pens' current home (and classic) black jersey from my youth, with a yellow swatch that could be from either the home or away uniforms.

It will be making its way to Mr. Parish's home tomorrow morning. I didn't have it long enough for it to become "my precious", but "Geno" is in fact one of only two Penguins I actively follow and really admire, with Kris Letang. I'm gld I got to hold it in my hands once.

Brayden Point Jersey Card

Going back to yesterday's game, it was fitting that Brayden Point would score the quintuple-overtime game-winner - and apparently unsurprising to those who watched him grow up - seeing as he often seems to play well within the Tampa Bay Lightning's system, letting stars like Steven Stamkos, Nikita Kucherov, Victor Hedman, Ryan McDonagh and Andrei Vasilevskiy take the spotlight, but every time he has a chance to stand out with a quick, nifty opportune play, he's there without fault.

It happened more often during the 2018-19 season, which was pretty much Point's coming out party, contributing 41 goals and 92 points for third-place (!) on the Bolts, behind Kucherov's 128 (41 goals) and Stamkos' 98 (45 goals), prompting the blogosphere and hockey websites' comments sections to erupt into thinking he was going to sign an $11M-a-year offer sheet, but he instead went with common sense, signing to a $6.75M cap hit over three years with the final year at $9M, meaning if Tampa wants to qualify him going forward, they're going to have t offer him a deal worth over $9.9M per - or risk losing him to free agency.

With the Covid situation bringing a stagnating cap, however, not many teams will have room to take on that kind of hit without giving anything in  return, so the Lightning may have some wiggle room to try a bold move like signing him a little below that.

This season, he had 25 goals and 64 points in 66 games, which is where I think his median will stand, with one or two other peaks above the 90-point mark, but mostly a very dependable, two-way point-per-game player is where I see him, manning a second line on a contending team.

And there has not really been a much more contending team than the one whose home uniform is this:

That's card #2 (Red Rainbow Jersey Parallel) from Upper Deck's 2019-20 Allure collection, featuring a decent-sized game-worn jersey swatch. I am still surprised I found this one for under $5 on Ebay considering how much packs of these went for on the market for $130 per box of 8 packs X 6 cards each, meaning a common card would normally come up to close to $3 on average, and I got a hit by a very good player for just a couple of bucks more.

I also bought a few common cards to test the set out, and I'm glad I didn't shell out for a whole box.

Kevin Fiala Jersey Card

Kevin Fiala scored the Minnesota Wild's first goal of the 2019-20 postseason, cementing his position as the team's next offensive star, after posting 54 points in 64 regular-season games, including no less than 14 goals and 26 points in the final 18 games.

It's not that people didn't think he could make it - he was, after all, the 11th-overall pick of the 2014 draft, ahead of the likes of Jakub Vrana (13th), Dylan Larkin (15th), Travis Sanheim (17th), Alex Tuch (18th), Tony DeAngelo (19th), Nick Schmaltz (20th), Robby Fabbri (21st), David Pastrnak (25th), Brayden Point (79th) and Viktor Arvidsson (112th) - but the fact that it took him power forward-type years (his sixth season) to put the ingredients together in a way that maximizes his skill-set against opponents must have a few scouts breathing easier in Nashville nowadays.

Although former Wild GM Paul Fenton - who had previously worked in the Nashville Predators' front office - was probably among those who held him in high esteem, considering he's the one who tagged prized young forward Mikael Granlund as the one to move South so that Fiala could come to the State of Hockey.

Considering the Wild has eight players over the age of 30 on their regular 20-man roster in Eric Staal (34), Mikko Koivu (36), Ryan Suter (34), Zach Parise (35), Mats Zuccarello (32), Brad Hunt (31) and goalies Alex Stalock (32) and Devan Dubnyk (33), they can sure use Fiala's fresh 23-year-old legs to lead them into the future.

Here he is wearing the Preds' ugly yellow (home) uniform from five years ago on card #RRJ-KF from Upper Deck's 2015-16 Ice set and Rookie Relic Jumbos sub-set:

It features a large blue jersey swatch that was worn in a rookie photo shoot, and is numbered 275/299. I got it on Ebay a couple of months ago, knowing I was going to be talking about him in the enar future, whether it was during the Play-in or the offseason.

Ed Belfour Jersey Card

Ed Belfour was a mostly-good goalie who had very bad years sprinkled in throughout his career. He won the Calder as the NHL's top rookie in 1990-91 despite also appearing in 23 games in 1988-89 and 9 playoff games in 1989-90 for the Chicago Blackhawks and also captured the Vezina Trophy as the GM's choice for top goalie that same year and in 1992-93, as well as the Stanley Cup in a hugely-contested 1998-99 Final where, according to the rules of the era, Dallas Stars superstar Brett Hull's series-clinching goal should have been disallowed.

The call was bullshit, as were Eddie The Eagle's Vezinas, as was his selection as a first-ballot Hall of Famer, which wouldn't have happened if he hadn't two very good seasons with the Toronto Maple Leafs near the end of his career.

That's my biggest beef with Belfour: he was very good overall.

He had one excellent season (1994-95) in parts of nine years with Chicago, was awful with the San Jose Sharks, was very good for three of five seasons with Dallas but hugely protected by Ken Hitchcock's super-defensive system (and the likes of Derian Hatcher, Richard Matvichuk, Jamie Pushor, and Brad Lukowich while Sergei Zubov and Darryl Sydor were tasked with handing the forwards the puck), was mostly very good in Toronto save for the last season and all the playoffs, and was a parody of himself with the Florida Panthers.

And through it all, one constant: drinking.

I was first a witness to it at the 1993 All-Star Game held in Montréal where he and teammate - and former star defender of the Montréal Canadiens - Chris Chelios took full advantage of the city's legendary night life and were drunk at the skills competition (Belfour letting five goals in) and hung over during the game itself, with their Conference losing 16-6, including Belfour letting the Wales Conference team leave the ice with a 6-0 lead after one period, his opponent, Habs legend Patrick Roy, getting the shutout at the other end of the ice. Maybe Chelios was a bad influence, though.

There were rumours throughout the years, but another documented case was his 2000 arrest in Dallas, where he scared a woman enough to have her call security on him in a hotel while she fled by cab, with Belfour retaliating by putting the bouncer in a headlock and assaulting him. Upon resisting his arrest, he offered the police officers "a billion dollars" if they let him go.

While in Florida in 2007, he got teammate Ville Peltonen in trouble for drunken disorderly conduct and resisting arrest again.

And earlier today, he was "arrested for criminal mischief and alcohol intoxication in a public place after an incident in a hotel early Tuesday morning":

The arrest report says Belfour was lying on the floor clutching a curtain rod that had been ripped out of the dry wall above a window when police approached him.

The report adds that Belfour was kicking a door to the locked spa in an attempt to get in. It says he had slurred speech, bloodshot eyes and could barely stand up.

The police say Belfour was not being compliant when officers tried to put handcuffs on him.

This was his smug mugshot:

This is not meant as an attack, slander or to make fun of him; the man needs help and he has pretended not to for the better part of the past 25 years, getting away with slaps on the wrist that have never taught him a true lesson.

After all, his liquor (whisky) company - Belfour Spirits - has a slogan that seems to tell us how he really feels:

None of this looks like someone who is trying to atone for their troubles with alcohol...

But back to his on-ice achievements.

Again, he was good. All-time great? In the era of Roy, Dominik Hasek and the great-in-numbers-only-but-has-to-be-included Martin Brodeur, not near that trifecta for sure. Considering some of the guys who came after him - Miikka Kiprosoff, Henrik Lundqvist, Roberto Luongo, Sergei Bobrovsky and Tim Thomas - not as consistent as those guys either, no, and no peak as high, either, having never once been dubbed the "best goalie on the planet" for even a year.

On the other hand, imagine if he'd been on top of his game for his entire career, would it have been more consistently close to his peaks, instead of riddled with valleys? Would it have lasted longer at a high level?

Who knows?

But considering the fact that not all retired Vezina winners other than Jim Carey are in the Hall, that some Conn Smythe winners aren't there either, and that one guy who has both will never get there - Ron Hextall, another uneven-but-mostly-very-good goaltender - they could have at least waited for a few years before letting him in.

Here he is in what many consider his "peak" years - a Cup victory, and two seasons with a GAA below 2.00 although Hasek and Ron Tugnutt also had a habit of turning in those types of performances at the time on lesser teams - wearing the Stars' best-looking uniform, the classic green star-shaped jersey from 1997-2006:

That's card #DM-EB from Upper Deck's 2017-18 Black Diamond collection and Diamond Mine Relics sub-set, numbered 63/299. I got it on Ebay in October for under $5. It features a black game-worn jersey swatch that is probably from that uniform.

Gerard Gallant: Two Autographed Cards

Full disclosure: I wasn't entirely certain how I wanted to handle this one, and I edited it until the wee hours of January 24th, more than a week after beginning writing. Gerard Gallant is a very good coach, and I was shocked not only that he was fired earlier today, but even more so that he was replaced this quickly by someone I feel is a lesser coach - former Florida Panthers, New Jersey Devils and San Jose Sharks -bench boss Peter DeBoer, whose primary trait is to get offered stacked lineups and never getting any of them to a championship title.

He's also a very good guy, was always accommodating any time I met him, once signed seven (!) cards for me by mail, and always took his time with Montréal journalists who wanted to interview him.

In terms of coaching credentials, he's definitely in the top-5 of "active" NHL coaches factoring in every head coach of the past three seasons. He started off winning a Junior "A" championship with his hometown Summerside Capitals in 1996-97, then became an assistant in the IHL (Fort Wayne Comets, 1998-99), AHL (Louisville Panthers, 1999-2000) and NHL (Columbus Blue Jackets, 2001-04) before getting handed the reigns of the team and from the middle of the 2003-04 season to a month and a half through the beginning of the 2005-06 season.

When former Detroit Red Wings teammate Steve Yzerman was named Team Canada's GM for the 2007 World Championships - essentially an audition for a future Olympic managerial role - Gallant was added to the coaching staff and helped bring home the gold medal.

After two seasons as an assistant-coach with the New York Islanders, Gallant took on the job as head coach of the LHJMQ's Saint John Sea Dogs, winning two league championships (2010 and 2011), the 2011 Memorial Cup and twice getting named the CHL's Coach Of The Year (2011 and 2012).

Like many coaches from the "Q" before him, he then "graduated" to the Montréal Canadiens organization, spending two seasons as an assistant-coach before obtaining the head coaching position with the Florida Panthers. His team missed the playoffs by 5 points in his first season despite going 38-29-15 but won the division the following season on the strength of a 47-26-9 record despite coaching a team analytics fans saw as massively flawed and way below average in shot differential. Unfortunately, in one of the weirdest moves of my lifetime, GM Dale Tallon was promoted to Team President, his analytics-based assistant Tom Rowe taking his place and getting rid of most of the team's grinders and pretty much its entire blue line. 22 games in, with a winning record of 11-10-1, Rowe dismissed Gallant, leaving him stranded on the side of the road. Rowe flubbed the season completely, the team missed the playoffs altogether and Tallon was brought back to fix things; the Panthers missed the playoffs by a few points last season and are among the better teams in the Atlantic this season.

 Meanwhile, Gallant was then hired by the expansion Vegas Golden Knights, a rag-tag team that built its first line with two Panthers outcasts - Jonathan Marchessault and Reilly Smith - and took them to the Stanley Cup Final in his first year, then showed it wasn't a fluke by having the team make the playoffs again in Year Two last season, getting eliminated in Game 7 of the first round by perhaps the worst call in modern hockey history... by DeBoer's Sharks.

Gallant will definitely find work coaching in the NHL very soon. As the bets coach available, he can wait out the remainder of the season and see what happens with other teams in the off-season; if the Tampa Bay Lightning fail to go far in the playoffs, Jon Cooper's time there will probably come to an end and whoever inherits that roster will not only get the best line-up int he NHL - heck, with an Art Ross, a Rocket Richard, a Norris and a Vezina winner all playing on the same team, those guys would be good enough to contend for an Olympic gold medal - but will likely also have a say in tweaking it in his image for a better shot at a Cup in his first season.

He would likely also be among the top-two picks to coach Yzerman's Wings (with Cooper, whom Yzerman put behind Tampa's bench) if he wanted to go through a hard rebuild and might be the best man to take on a quick and somewhat talented roster like the Habs', if he could improve his French-speaking skills. There's also an expansion team in need of a coach (and a name...) in Seattle, but I wouldn't be interested in joining them if there were other options, myself, what with GM Ron Francis' handling of the Bill Peters/verbal and physical abuse situation when both were with the Carolina Hurricanes; Francis needs a three-year probation to show that he's learned from the situation and can make the correct adult calls in adult situations and not just sweep things under the rug like the Old Guard did for too long. (I repeat that they should have hired Sean Burke or Ron Hextall to run that team anyway).

Here's a card of his from his glory days in Detroit, wearing the Wings' beautiful white (then-home) jersey with the assistant-captain's "A", having just completed seasons of 72, 73, 93 and 80 points, on card #71 from Pro Set's inaugural 1990-91 Series 1 collection:

And here he is wearing the team's classic red (then-away) uniform, again with the "A", on card #402 from Score's 1993-94 Score set:

He signed them both in black sharpie, adding his jersey number (17) at the end. Edit: He was set to coach in the All-Star Game in late January but opted against it after being fired.

Tim Thomas Jersey Card

Spoiler Alert #1: I'm writing a book about the 100 best goalies of all time.
Spoiler Alert #2: it will differ from The Hockey News' list from last year.
Spoiler Alert #3: Tim Thomas will be included in it.

All of this was true before he came out this week and talked about the brain damage he's suffered because of all of his past concussions. It took a lot of courage to come forward and explain why he stepped away from the game. You can't help but feel for a guy who was so messed up he couldn't decide what to do or what to eat as he got out of bed, who had to resort to mapping out his days on paper and then choosing activities and willing himself to complete at least part of that list, whether it's crossing a couple of items off of it or half the list.

At the heart of it all stands a human being who has trouble living his daily life, his family who's been there for him the entire time, and a guy whose public life was fodder for sports journalists for a very short period of time.

We're talking about the best goalie in the world for a three-year run, who led the league in save percentage and goals-against average and won the Jennings Trophy and Vezina in 2008-09, and led the league in the same categories in 2010-11, winning another Vezina, but also bring the Stanley Cup to the city of Boston for the first time in 39 years, winning the Conn Smythe in one of the best displays of post-season goaltending since Patrick Roy's retirement.

In and of itself, that is amazing, as is the fact that he "made it" full-time in the NHL at the age of 30, became a true star at 33 when others actually start to decline, and was the last Québec Nordiques draft pick (217th overall, ninth round, 1994) to play in the NHL.

But there was also his political stances, his support of the Tea Party, his adherence to conspiracy theories ("Climate Change Is A Hoax" invented by companies who want to profit from selling "clean" energy), his refusal to join the Boston Bruins at the White House to meet President Barack Obama after their Cup win, and his support of Chik-Fil-A's homophobic and religious stances.

Needless to say, I disagree with all of the above political positions, but he had a right to have and express them. And none of that had any incidence on his play. It is a fact that in the 101 years of NHL hockey, the 110 years of professional hockey and the 125 years of the sport's existence, that three-year run alone makes him one of the 100 best to ever do the job, and his very good half-seasons (1997-98 and 1998-99) and elite-level full seasons (2001-02 and 2004-05) in Finland confirm it, too.

Granted, as a former goalie and goaltending coach to minor-league players and hockey schools myself, I would never teach his "style" to large groups of students, but some of his highlight-reel, Dominik Hasek-style moves are definitely worthy of further exploration, the same way Félix Potvin's paddle-down move had a decent four-year run and may warrant getting revisited in the future.

So here is Thomas, in his full Bruins glory, wearing their white (away) uniform, on the "Silver" two-jersey version of card #122 from Upper Deck's 2012-13 Artifacts set:

It features two black game-worn jersey swatches and is numbered 35/125.

Johan Franzen Jersey Card

It's not getting any better for Mike Babcock's reputation, as Chris Chelios had things to say on the Spittin' Chicklets podcast, and Johan Franzen corroborated he was on the bad end of Babcock's moods, going so far as saying he was “the worst person I have ever met. A great coach, but he's a terrible person, the worst I ever met. He’s a bully who was attacking people. It could be a cleaner at the arena in Detroit or anybody. He would lay into people without any reason.”

So not just scratching Mike Modano playing for his hometown Detroit Red Wings for ten straight games so he could retire with 1500 games played, scratching Jason Spezza in what would have been his first game as a member of his hometown Toronto Maple Leafs because it was against his former team - but actual verbal abuse rough enough to launch a player suffering from a concussion into a full-blown depression.

And Franzen came to Detroit the same year Babcock started, the 2005-06 season, playing two games in 2015-16, the year after Babcock left - and had been on LTIR since.

The Mule wasn't just a bit player who won an Olympic gold medal with Team Sweden in 2006 and a Stanley Cup with the Wings in 2008; he had 18 points in 16 games during that Cup run and 23 points in 23 games the following team when the Wings lost the the Pittsburgh Penguins in 7 games. He holds the team records for most game-winning goals in a single month (6), most goals in a single playoff series (9), most game-winners in a playoff year (5), most points in a playoff game (6), shares the team record for most consecutive playoff point streak (12 games, with Gordie Howe) and the mark for most goals in a post-season (13, with Henrik Zetterberg) and the NHL record for most points in a 40-game series (9).

In my lifetime, he's probably the third-best playoff performer I've seen play for Motown, after Nicklas Lidstrom and Zetterberg, ahead of Pavel Datsyuk, Mike Vernon, Steve Yzerman, Brendan Shanahan and Sergei Fedorov.

His regular-season numbers were nothing to sneeze at either, with four 25-goal seasons in five years - with a high of 34 in 2008-09 - and the one where he didn't put up those numbers on an even better pace, with 10 goals, 11 assists and 21 points in 23 games in 2009-10.

At 6'4" and 230 pounds, he wasn't physically weak, in case carrying the Wings on his back in the postseason didn't clue you in on that. He wasn't mentally weak either. But he still hasn't recovered from the physicality of the game coupled with the PTSD that came with Babcock piling on with his own shit.

I hope he can continue to improve as he turns 40 in 20 days, and lives a great retirement. He's more than earned it.

Here he is wearing the Red Wings' white (away) uniform on the dual jersey silver version of card #41 from Upper Deck's 2012-13 Artifacts set, numbered 80/125:

I got this one on Ebay a couple of weeks ago hoping to talk about Franzen again eventually, I just had no idea it would come so soon. It features two red game-worn jersey swatches.

Jaroslav Halak Swatch Card

The Montréal Canadiens - and particularly their head coach Claude Julien and star goalie Carey Price (3.56 GAA, .886 save percentage) - are mired in a month-long funk that is seemingly without end, so facing former star goalie Jaroslav Halak - he of the near-perfect record against the Habs, especially in Montréal - was likely going to prove problematic, especially since he's in town with the rest of the Atlantic Division-leading Boston Bruins in search of their fourth-straight win after a sub-par outing in Ottawa last week.

Wouldn't you know it, Price let in 5 goals on 11 shots while Halak stopped 36 of 37 en route to an 8-1 routing of the home team. This after Price, Julien and the Canadiens blew a 4-0 lead to lose 6-5 at the hands of the New York Rangers on home ice on Saturday.

This was Montréal's fifth-straight loss, and the masses are already speculating on who could take over behind the Canadiens' bench, the smart money betting safe on Associate-Coach Kirk Muller, Mike Babcock, Guy Boucher and current assistant Dominic Ducharme.

I believe the team will stay idle, but there are plenty of bench bosses I prefer to Julien, including Patrick Roy, Guy Carbonneau, Manitoba Moose bench boss Pascal Vincent, Syracuse Crunch head coach Benoît Groulx and - why not? - Ducharme, Boucher and Muller, in that order.

Not Babcock - he needs to sort his public image out, repent, and attempt to grow and change his ways a bit before he's given a second (fourth) chance. Furthermore, he seems like he's taking his former partners down with him - today it was Bill Peters' turn for alleged (and seemingly now-corroborated) racist behaviour, perhaps tomorrow it will be Boucher, a fellow McGill alumnus and another coach who uses mind games to motivate his players.

But back to the hero of the evening, Halak, who made news last week for his use of practice pads. He is on the last of a two-year deal with Boston that pays him $2.75M annually to play roughly the same amount of regular-season games as starter Tuukka Rask - who makes $7M - so that Rask can be rested come playoff time, a strategy that worked well enough to lead the Bruins to the Stanley Cup Final last season. It's a thankless job, but he's shining in it, with a 2.39 GAA (7th in the NHL), a 5-1-3 record, a .930 save percentage (4th) and a shutout (tied for 7th). Other goalies aren't faring as well:

The Bruins are among the favourites to earn the William Jennings Trophy for fewest goals given as a team, which would mark Halak's second such win. The first time, of course, was as a member of the St. Louis Blues, as can be seen on card #FOG-HAL from Panini's 2012-13 Certified set and Fabric Of The Game sub-set:

It is numbered 101/150 and is of the "Red / Mirror" variant; the swatch lies underneath a die-cut stencil of the word "Blues", fittingly, and features a prominent blue game-worn jersey swatch.

I got it on Ebay just last week for use at a much later date, but it was (physically) the closest piece of memorabilia to feature when I opted for Halak as my subject of the day.

Dylan Gambrell Jersey Card

To my absolute pleasure, the San Jose Sharks are mired in a mediocre quarter-season that has them in a four-team cluster oscillating between fourth-place and seventh in the lowly Pacific Division; additionally, their offense is pretty dry, with a number of forwards performing below expectations notably restricted free agent signings Timo Meier and Kevin Labanc (he who "bet on himself" last summer to help the team bring back veterans Joe Thornton and Patrick Marleau to the fold).

One player who can't seem to find his place on the roster is 23-year-old Dylan Gambrell, the 60th pick in the 2016 draft, ahead of the likes of top-unit defenseman Adam Fox (66th overall), Joey Anderson (73rd), Carsen Twarynski (82nd), Josh Mahura (85th), top-unit defenseman Victor Mete (100th), Sharks teammate Noah Gregor (111th), a goalie who's already played for the Colorado Avalanche (Adam Werner, 131st), Max Lajoie (133rd), Nicholas Caamano (146th), top-six forward Jesper Bratt (162nd), and Maxim Mamin (175th).

At 6' and 183 pounds, Gambrell is by no means a power forward, which means he should develop at a regular pace, reaching his prime between the ages of 24 and 27 until roughly 30, 31 or 32. He has a good face-off percentage this season at 52.0%, but cannot yet be used as a shut-down third-liner because his -6 rating is problematic, made worse by a negative Corsi (45.8), a negative Fenwick (44.1) and a negative PDO (97.4).

His lone goal with 4 assists for 5 points in 20 games makes his coach hesitate to send him out with better players, particularly since the two forwards who are near the point-per-game mark are both centres - Logan Couture and Tomas Hertl.

Then again, his head coach is Peter DeBoer, not exactly a guy known for fixing things, changing them up or thinking outside the box.

Here he is wearing the Sharks' teal uniform they've been using since 2013 (with the shoulder patches that date from 2017 onward, though, featuring a matching jersey swatch:

That's the "Gold" variant of the jersey insert version of card #118 from Upper Deck's 2018-19 SP Game-Used collection and Authentic Rookies sub-set, numbered 366/499.

They are purposefully vague about the origins of the jersey, however:

They guarantee it's "been worn by the featured player". Whether it was on or off the ice, in a game or a photo shoot, if he was asleep or awake or even consented to wearing it is not specified, nor it the jersey is authentic game-quality or a replica.

Keep in mind these cost $150 for six cards - that's over 20 hours of a minimum-wage job in Canadian money considering income and sales taxes.

Mikael Granlund Jersey 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)

Chosen by the Minnesota Wild with the ninth-overall pick at the 2010 draft, Mikael Granlund currently stands eighth in points in his draft class behind Tyler Seguin (2nd), Taylor Hall (1st), Jeff Skinner (7th), Vladimir Tarasenko (16th), Ryan Johansen (4th), Evgeny Kuznetsov (26th) and Mark Stone (178th), meaning he was one of the few that fell at exactly the right spot.

It took him a few years to learn how to utilize his talents in the NHL at top-line level, spending four seasons as the understudy to Mikko Koivu and then Eric Staal, but in his age 24 (2016-17) and 25 (2017-18) seasons, he cracked the 20-goal and 60-point marks both times, with a high of 26 goals and 69 points in 2016-17.

He was on his way to a similar type of production last year when the Wild traded him to the Nashville Predators for Kevin Fiala in what appears as both an eventual salary dump and a bet that Fiala may develop into the same type of player or better, but so far the results have been middling for both teams.

Here he is wearing the Wild's white (away) uniform, on card #GJ-MG from Upper Deck's 2018-19 Series 1 set and UD Game Jersey sub-set:

It features a matching game-worn jersey swatch with two rows of stitching that appear clearly on the card but not on the scan. I got it on Ebay for a couple of bucks; Beckett values it at around $5.

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.

Seth Jones Jersey Card

I boldly predicted the Columbus Blue Jackets would beat and eliminate the Tampa Bay Lightning late last night, and Seth Jones' powerplay game winner continued his clutch play for his team as the first of four steps in in that direction.

It'll be a long and hard-fought series, but the Bolts - who this year tied the NHL record with 62 regular-season wins - have never faced an adversary like this. Don't get me wrong, they've played against great teams - last year's Stanley Cup-winning Washington Capitals, for one, and the Chicago Blackhawks in the 2014-15 Final - but this team is a different beast altogether.

You've got no less than five key players (star winger Artemi Panarin, star center Matt Duchene, skilled winger Ryan Dzingel, defenseman Adam McQuaid, and the only active two-time Vezina-winning goalie Sergei Bobrovsky) performing to earn their career-defining contracts on July 1st; a top-quality defense that nearly matches Tampa's, with Jones as the centerpiece, accompanied by McQuaid, 2012 second-overall pick Ryan Murray, All-Star Zach Werenski, Team Canada alumnus David Savard, and as depth pieces, former second-rounders Adam Clendening and Scott Harrington; also a forward corps that includes legitimate first-liners Pierre-Luc Dubois and (captain) Nick Foligno, heart-and-soul checker Brandon Dubinsky, 40-goal man Cam Atkinson, rising star Oliver Bjorkstrand, tough rookie Alexandre Texier, and a bunch of solid soldiers; and last but not least, head coach John Tortorella.

There is simply no other coach like Torts. Oh, there are far better tacticians, but no better motivator when he actually has enough time to get to know his players. It's not just manipulation on his part (like, say, Guy Boucher), nor tough-for-toughness'-sake like Claude Julien or Ken Hitchcock; no, Torts has his players' trust that he will defend them if he senses a will to sacrifice towards the team's goals, and he rewards effort. And he makes speeches like these:

🔊 VOLUME UP 🔊

Think this fiery Torts pep talk had anything to do with the @BlueJacketsNHL comeback??? #CBJ pic.twitter.com/gmhAAyVXz1

— FOX Sports Ohio (@FOXSportsOH) April 11, 2019

That's after the first period, which saw Tampa build a 3-0 lead. Full disclosure: I stopped watching the game live at that point.

Again, he's a different beast.

And when Jones plays like the guy who finished fourth in Norris Trophy voting last season, the Jackets know any game's within hand.

Here he is wearing the magnificent Blue Jackets' alternate uniform, on card #GJ-SJ from Upper Deck's 2017-18 Series 1 set and UD Game Jersey sub-set:

It features a white game-worn jersey swatch. I found this card so pretty that I paid $5 for it on Ebay (plus shipping).

Griffin Reinhart Jersey Card

Last April, I wanted to write about Griffin Reinhart but realized I either didn't have or couldn't find a card of his to feature, so I found this one on Ebay for $2.50:

That's the jersey insert version of card #113 from Upper Deck's 2014-15 SP Game-Used Edition set and Rookies sub-set (gold variant, numbered #34/499), showing him wearing the New York Islanders' white (now-away) uniform, with a matching jersey swatch from a rookie photo shoot.

Reinhart was the fourth overall pick in the 2012 draft, behind Nail Yakupov (1st, Edmonton Oilers), Ryan Murray (2nd, Columbus Blue Jackets) and Alex Galchenyuk (3rd, Montréal Canadiens), so it's safe to say the top talent from that year has yet to fully develop, although some picks have now become impact players, such as Morgan Rielly (5th, Toronto Maple Leafs), Hampus Lindholm (6th, Anaheim Ducks), Mathew Dumba (7th, Minnesota Wild), Jacob Trouba (9th, Winnipeg Jets), Slater Koekkoek (10th, Tampa Bay Lightning), Filip Forsberg (11th, Nashville Predators by way of the Washington Capitals), Cody Ceci (15th, Ottawa Senators), Tom Wilson (16th, Caps), Andrei Vasilevskiy (19th, Bolts), Olli Maatta (22nd, Pittsburgh Penguins), Brady Skjei (28th, New York Rangers), Tanner Pearson (30th, Los Angeles Kings), Colton Sissons (50th, Preds), Joonas Korpisalo (62nd, Blue Jackets), Shayne Gostisbehere (78th, Philadelphia Flyers), two-time Conn Smythe contender Matt Murray (83rd, Pens), and promising goalies Connor Hellebuyck (130th, Jets) and Linus Ullmark (163rd, Buffalo Sabres).

His slow development meant Isles GM Garth Snow was willing to let him go for the right price, so when Oilers GM Peter Chiarelli offered first- and second-round picks in the 2015 draft for his services, a deal was struck.

Unfortunately, Reinhart would only suit up for 29 games with the Oilers and 84 with the Bakersfield Condors over the following two seasons before getting chosen in the expansion draft by the Vegas Golden Knights, meaning Chiarelli essentially gave up too much for him and lost him for nothing.

On the other hand, that means the Oilers get to keep the likes of Benoit Pouliot, Iiro Pakarinen, Jujhar Khaira, Mark Fayne, Tyler Pitlick, Kris Russell and backup goalie Laurent Brossoit.