Mariusz Czerkawski Jersey Card

If you didn't know anything about hockey and read about Mariusz Czerkawski's career on Wikipedia or something of that ilk 100 years from now, you'd think he was Brett Hull.

We're talking about the first Polish player to play in the NHL, a guy who, when playing for his national team, accumulated 39 points (27 goals, 12 assists) in 25 Juniors-level games and 34 points (17 goals, 17 assists) in in 36 mens' teams games, despite often being the only NHLer on the roster, more often than not playing against teams made up entirely of stars and semi-stars. He was doing it by himself.

And if, again, you didn't know anything about hockey and read up on the NHL, some teams would would appear as more important than the others, namely the Original Six, and perhaps the 1980s dynasties Edmonton Oilers and New York Islanders. Well, Czerkawski played for both the Oil and the Isles, as well as three Original Six teams: the Montréal Canadiens, Boston Bruins and Toronto Maple Leafs. If you didn't have the context that we do - how they all sucked at the end of the 1990s and early 00s - you'd think he may be the link, the one common thread, between great and historical teams.

And he had two 30-goal seasons, and two more over the 25 mark - in the Dead Puck Era. Heck, his All-Star game participation, in the midst of a 70-point season, was probably fully warranted, seeing as he led the Isles with nearly 30 points more than the team's second-best scorer and the fact that the goalie they used the most that year was Kevin Weekes, with 32 games played (Roberto Luongo followed with 24, and Félix Potvin appeared in 22; Luongo had the best save percentage of them all at .904).

Those of us who followed the latter stages of his career, however, feel he fizzled greatly at the end, putting a damper on a relatively fine career, not unlike Sergei Berezin or Sergei Samsonov.

Here is a card showing him wearing the Habs' white (then-home) uniform, which is #14 of Pacific's 2003-04 Exclusive collection and Authentic Game-Worn Jerseys sub-set:

The back is even super-specific as to where the blue game-worn jersey swatch is from:

It's from his days with the Isles, with a matching picture on the back! That's what I call attention to detail!

Tomi Kallio Jersey Card

By not following hockey from pretty much 1997 until 2002, I missed out on a few things, such as having any sympathy for Todd Bertuzzi, having any sympathy for Eric Lindros, and realizing how decent Tomi Kallio's career was.

After a 53-point 1999-2000 season (in 50 games) with his hometown TPS Turku, Kallio made his way to the Atlanta Thrashers, after they plucked him from the Colorado Avalanche at the 1999 expansion draft. The Avs had made him a fourth-round draft pick in 1995.

He had a decent rookie season with the Thrashers, scoring 14 goals with 13 assists for 27 points in 56 games in 2000-01 in the heart of the Dead Puck Era and followed it with a 22-point outing in 60 games in 2001-02 before suiting up for three teams - Atlanta, the Columbus Blue Jackets and the Philadelphia Flyers - in 2002-03.

That was enough uncertainty for him, and he made the move to the Swedish League, where he would play for the next 13 seasons - nine with the Frölunda Indians and four with the Växjö Lakers. He scored the winning goal in the Indians' 2013 league championship game.

He went back to Finland for the 2015-16 season, again with Turku, leading the team with 44 points in 60 games, ahead of former NHLers Éric Perrin (third, 34 points), Henrik Tallinder (sixth, 21 points), and Petteri Nummelin (seventh, 19 points).

He is a decorated international skater, having won three silver (1999, 2001 and 2007) and two bronze (2000 and 2006) World Championship medals with Team Finland; he also played for his country at the 2002 Olympics.

Here he is in the Thrashers' best-looking uniform, the dark blue (away) garbs from their early days, on card #1 from Pacific's 2002-03 Exclusive set and Authentic Game-Worn Jerseys sub-set:

It features a red game-worn jersey swatch that matched the jersey's arms and hips.

I hear he was a fast skater who liked to shoot more than to pass and liked playing in traffic in front of opponents' nets, but he may have lacked the sniper's finishing touch that would have been required for him to be the impact player at least four NHL teams had hoped he'd be. Still, his 211 goals and 464 points in 637 Swedish League games are a decent total, particularly when you add his 34 goals and 87 points in 108 playoff games. His Finnish totals are also good, as he posted 176 points in 266 regular-season games and 31 points in 45 playoff games in his native country.

Emmanuel ''Manny'' Fernandez Jersey Card

In case you haven't heard, the Minnesota Wild are having goaltending issues at the moment. Darcy Kuemper needs to get his confidence back but because of his new contract (and the fact that he played in too many games to not have to clear waivers), he can't be sent down to the AHL for seasoning, and Niklas Backstrom's play is a reflection of his team's defense: not as stellar as they had shown to be in the past.

GM Chuck Fletcher has denied reports he was looking to acquire the Buffalo Sabres' Jhonas Enroth, and Ilya Bryzgalov, who had been hanging around the team waiting for a situation such as this one, signed on with the Anaheim Ducks for the year.

If you can't call the Ghostbusters, who can you call?

With the trend of having former goalies dress up for NHL games, I'd suggest Emmanuel ''Manny'' Fernandez, who has won the Jennings Trophy with the Wild, and whose 2.24 GAA in the team's inaugural season is an NHL record for lowest on a first-year club. He even had a winning record for the expansion team that year. As a matter of fact, despite having played in the team's first six seasons, he only had one year where he didn't have a clear winning record.

And it wasn't all just because of (his uncle) Jacques Lemaire's defense-first system, either: Fernandez' save percentages with the Wild were often remarkable, with peaks of .920 (2000-01), .924 (2002-03) and .919 (2005-06).

Fernandez even won a second Jennings trophy late in his career, with the Boston Bruins in 2008-09, and is barely 40 years old right now, younger than Dominik Hasek, Ed Belfour and Tim Thomas were in their final seasons.

Then again, Hasek and Thomas are also kind of looking for work at the moment...

But we already know Fernandez looks good wearing the Wild's colours:

It's card #13 from the Authentic Game-Worn Jersey sub-set of Pacific's 2002-03 Exclusive set, which I got in a re-pack of cards three or four years ago, and features a red swatch while showing him with the team's green (then-away) uniform.