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.

Bobby Ryan Swatch Card

A few days ago, Ottawa Senators winger Bobby Ryan lost his mother to cancer. To find out how much she meant for him - and to make your allergies tear your eyes up - read his piece on The Players Tribune; I don't remember a story so heart-wrenching, particularly when one knows of his family history.

Everyone has a story, and not all people can handle all situations; still, without putting down those who have and still struggle with what life brings or has brought their way, it's nice when someone gets to rise above it and succeed at what they choose to do.

He of the six 50-point seasons (with a high of 71 in 2010-11) and of the four 30-goal seasons (with a high of 35 in 2009-10 is still in his prime at 29 years old, and will be a big part of the Sens' resurgence this coming season. Guy Boucher will be the perfect head coach to help him reach a level the Senators have not gotten out of him yet.

Here he is wearing the Anaheim Ducks, white (away) uniform on card #FOG-BR from Panini's 2012-13 Certified set and Fabric Of The Game sub-set, numbered 147/299 and featuring a matching game-worn jersey swatch:

It's a thick, beautiful silver foil card that I'm extremely happy to have.

Derek Roy Swatch Card

The season started out ok for Derek Roy, as he recorded an assist in his first game with the Nashville Predators. The former Buffalo Sabres captain looks poised to produce at the same rate as he had with the Sabres and Dallas Stars (0.75 points per game), rather than with the Vancouver Canucks and St. Louis Blues (0.5).

When a team's general manager says his $1M contract offer is your ''last chance at getting top-6 ice time'', like David Poile did in July, one must feel at least some amount of pressure. Playing with Colin Wilson and Craig Smith gives the diminutive and skillful Roy (5'9'', 184 pounds) a playmaker and a shooter to manage and match his own skill set with, and it could very well lead to great things for him personally.

For a guy who had four straight 20-goal seasons (with a peak of 32 in 2007-08) and four straight 60-point seasons (peaking at 81 the same year), getting back into point-producing mode after a sub-par 9-28-37 season in the defensively-minded Blues' system will be a relief.

He has two silver medals playing for Team Canada internationally, one at the World Juniors, and one at the World Championships. At 31 years of age, it would require quite the rejuvenation (coupled with an early playoff exit) for him to be able to represent his country again in the future.

During his time in Buffalo, it seems like the team was changing uniforms on a yearly basis; the one depicted on this card is a decent one - except for the logo/lettering - inspired by their original 1970s/1980s garbs:

The card is from Panini's 2011-12 Certified set (card #20 of the Fabric Of The Game sub-set, numbered 74/399), and features a seemingly black swatch (at least in person), which would mean it's from the team's turn-of-the-millennium away uniform.

Ryan O'Reilly Swatch Card

Ah, the curious case of Ryan O'Reilly. The 33rd pick of the 2009 draft, ahead of Robin Lehner (46th), Brandon Pirri (59th), Tomas Tatar (60th), Tyson Barrie (64th), David Savard (94th), Stanley Cup winner Linden Vey (96th), Gabriel Bourque (132nd), and Gabriel Dumont (139th) already has NHL hardware - he won the Lady Byng trophy this summer after notching just two penalty minutes all season, for playing with a broken stick no less - but is also entering his second contract dispute with the Colorado Avalanche in less than two years.

He signed an offer sheet with the Calgary Flames a year and a half ago, a trap if there ever was one, considering he made $1M (with a 2.5M signing bonus) the first year, and a whopping $6.5M the second, meaning as a Restricted Free Agent, the team who would own his rights (be they the Flames, the Avs or any team he would have been traded to) had at least match the final year's worth just as a qualifying offer, or lose him to Unrestricted Free Agency. Of course, since then, teams were awarded the right to bring a player to arbitration and lower their salary - which they have applied for, and both sides enter the next couple of weeks a little on edge.

And there was that thing with O'Reilly's dad, angry at the organization for not having named his son captain, his Twitter rants, and his attack on how the team views character.

Except character isn't about crying the minute you don't get what you want, it's about getting up when you're down, manning up to your shortcomings, and doing what's best for the group, not yourself. O'Reilly led the team with a lowly 55 points in 2011-12 as the Avs failed to make the playoffs, and he thought it was a good idea to get paid more than 10% of the team's cap - higher than its actual first-liners - hindering their chances at adding outside help; they finished last in their conference the following year, obviously.

To me, those are signs of a mercenary, and those guys don't deserve a letter on their jersey, least of which a "C". They are those you use while your prospects develop, then send to places where folks would rather watch NASCAR than hockey, or in a desert on an always-bankrupt team, or a teal-coloured ''perennial contender'', or in frigid Manitoba. You forget they ever existed, save for the three draft picks they got you when you set them free.

But maybe I'm just a romantic when it comes to Colorado. Maybe I've been spoiled by Joe Sakic and Patrick Roy and Milan Hejduk, and maybe I believe Matt Duchene and Gabriel Landeskog are made of the same cloth.

And yet, after saying all this, I didn't hate it when I unpacked this 2012-13 Certified card by Panini (#FOG-RO of the Fabric Of The Game sub-set, numbered /49/299), showing him in the Avs' dark (home) uniform with a white jersey swatch:

The silver foil actually looks better scanned than in real life, which is pretty rare. I wouldn't mind white swatches so much if the picture on the card at least depicted the player having some on him... not doing so just tells me they buy those because they're cheaper, which is likely because it looks bland, or else it'd be on the card. Unless three wrongs make a right...

Alexandre Burrows Swatch Card

For reasons explained in an earlier post, I'll likely be digging through my backlog of older cards for the next while...

Good thing I really like some of them, like this Alexandre Burrows swatch card, from Panini's 2010-11 Certified (card #AB of the Fabric Of the Game sub-set, featuring a nice big, blue swatch, numbered 85/250):

You might get a bit of a shock looking at Burrows' statistics this season - he had not scored a single goal until March 12th (he's got 5 since), and just 9 assists, but keep in mind his linemates are also in a season-long slump, with Henrik Sedin having just 10 goals and 36 assists, and Daniel Sedin at 14 goals and 28 assists. All of Burrows' goals have come since the Sedins have been out with injuries...

Nevertheless, the four-time 25-goal scorer (with a career-high of 35 in 2009-10) is still an adept sniper who can handle pain, play injured, and lead by example. If what he needs is a change in scenery, I'll welcome him to Montréal with open arms...

Nicklas Lidstrom Swatch Card

You've got to give to receive... and this trade would have sent shockwaves all around the NHL had it been done in real life: A Raymond Bourque (sporting a Colorado Avalanche uniform) swatch card for this one of Nicklas Lidstrom:

The best defenseman of each of their eras, though Lidstrom was far more dominating. The card is from Panini's 2012-13 Certified (card #FOG-NLI of the Fabric Of The Game sub-set) and has him pictured in the Detroit Red Wings' white (away) uniform, with matching swatch.

It is serial-numbered 111/299. I would have preferred number 2 (his jersey number), or 222, but the gift-horse's mouth looked pretty good nonetheless.

The first (and only) European captain of a Stanley Cup championship team and perennial Norris trophy winner will soon be a lock as a first-ballot Hall Of Famer... I'll need another card to commemorate his induction!

Brandon McMillan Swatch Card

Writing about that Brandon Sutter swatch card the other day reminded me about this one, then-Anaheim Ducks sophomore Brandon McMillan:

It too is from Panini's 2011-12 Certified set (card #3, the Fabric Of The Game sub-set), and shows a nice black swatch from the Ducks' home - or third - jersey.

McMillan was only a point-per-game player once in Juniors - in his last (fourth) season. He is a half-point per game player in the AHL, and has so far played 91 NHL games and tallied 11 goals and 15 assists. He was traded to the Phoenix Coyotes at the deadline last April so, really, who knows where he'll be playing next season - Phoenix, Portland (AHL), Seattle or Québec.

Brandon Sutter Swatch Card

I guess I was destined to acquire this card... I participated in another Ebay box break last week, and lots were sold for two teams at a time. I took the lot combining the Pittsburgh Penguins and Carolina Hurricanes and ended up with Brandon Sutter, who is now a Pen after a trade last summer with the Canes.

Many, had they known they were going to ge a guy who played for both teams, would have set their sights on Jordan Staal - not me, not at all. The Sutters are hockey royalty, and I was a big fan of the first wave - already have autographed cards of Brent Sutter and Ron Sutter - and have been following Brandon's (Brent's son) career since the day he was drafted - the ninth in the family to have that happen. I was hoping he'd land with the New York Islanders or Chicago Blackhawks (like his father), or the Calgary Flames (where the family comes from, and a team suited right for their style of balls-out play), but really, it's a dream come true to get drafted, and beggars can't be choosers.

Now, onto the swatch card:

http://amzn.to/2ouNydpIt's from Panini's 2011-12 Certified set (card #31, numbered 21/399), and features a nice black swatch, either from the team's third jersey, or the sleeve or belt line of their home (red) uniform. The Certified cards have a long, white border that the swatch doesn't come close to filling, so perhaps I'll try to have the card signed some day.

Marian Gaborik Jersey Card

I had a post on scoring machine Marian Gaborik during the Olympic break last season, when he had 35 goals in 58 games with the New York Rangers and the Slovak team was making its way to the medal round. He finished the season with 42 goals and 44 assists (good for 86 points) in 76 games with the Rangers, who missed the playoffs by a single point by losing in the very last NHL game of the season to the Philadelphia Flyers - the Stanley Cup finalists - in overtime.

He was injured early on this season but is returning to the ice tomorrow against the Buffalo Sabres - expect a hat trick. So far this season, he has yet to score, netting two assists in three games.

This beautiful jersey card is from Panini's brand-new 2010-11 Certified set (card #MG), the Fabric Of The Game sub-set. Taking a cue from Upper Deck's playbook, the back of the card vaguely states ''the enclosed game-worn material is guaranteed by Panini'', which is both all the certification one needs but also far from the vocabulary used a decade ago when companies would specifically say the item had been worn by the same player in an official game, naming the player. But unlike UD's jsersey cards, this one has nice facts and tidbits of information about Gaborik's NHL career, namely that it'll take a while before anyone on the Minnesota Wild's roster beats his team records, which is well deserved.

I'm not sure how much this specific card is worth yet, but 5-card packs are going anywhere from $10 to $25, with 10-pack boxes going $100-155 - and he is one of the league's most gifted forwards, albeit not a household name like ''Crosby'' or ''Ovechkin''. Yet.