Slater Koekkoek Autograph Card

A couple of weeks ago, the Tampa Bay Lightning essentially gave up on trying to find room for Slater Koekkoek int heir lineup, sending him to the Chicago Blackhawks for Jan Rutta. Koekkoek, on the verge of turning 25, had been a first-round draft pick (10th overall in 2012); Rutta is an undrafted 28-year-old Czech star who is proving to be too good for the AHL but who also failed to make the Hawks a decent defensive team.

Ultimately, Koekkoek's failing will have been that he was unable to knock off a veteran from a line-up that included Jason Garrison, Anton Stralman, Andrej Sustr and Braydon Coburn, which morphed into the star-studded current lineup of Norris winner Victor Hedman, All-Star Ryan McDonagh, Stralman, eventual Norris winner Mikhail Sergachev, Coburn and a dependable second-rounder from 2015, Erik Cernak.

Not that he wasn't good. It's just that every time he finally found a roster spot, GM Steve Yzerman (maybe accidentally) added one or two left-handed defensemen that slotted ahead of him, with the  latest instances being former New York Rangers captain McDonagh and former Montréal Canadiens first-rounder Sergachev (actually, both are technically former Habs first-rounders).

It's hard for a young player to fight for ice time on a championship-caliber team - which the Bolts have been for years now - especially a young defenseman. Tampa will likely continue to be the cream of the crop for a few years as well. The Hawks, on the other hand, have big decisions looming with another expansion draft coming and two defensemen (Duncan Keith and Brent Seabrook) with no-trade clauses they'll have to protect unless they can find a way of letting (at least one of) them go before the end of next season.

It may be of little comfort to a guy like Koekkoek who is about to enter his prime and might have had his development stalled a bit by remaining in the stands a tad too long in Florida, but an actual NHL roster spot will be available for him in 2020, in Chicago, Seattle or elsewhere.

Here he is wearing the Bolts' white (away) uniform, on card #152 from Upper Deck's 2015-16 Trilogy collection and Rookie Premieres (Level 2) sub-set:

It's numbered #379/499 and features an on-sticker blue-sharpied signature. The scan made it blueish with green highlights, but to the naked eye, it's actually mostly silver with golden highlights.

Nikita Scherbak Autograph Card

The 26th overall pick of the 2014 NHL draft, Nikita Scherbak was waived by the Montréal Canadiens on December 1st and claimed by the Los Angeles Kings the next day, marking the seventh of eight first-round picks that have yet to work out in Montréal, the exception being current rookie Jesperi Kotkaniemi, with a thought for elite defenseman-to-be Mikhail Sergachev, traded for Jonathan Drouin.

He scored a goal in his first game in L.A. but produced nothing in the next seven, which prompted the Kings to assign him to their AHL affiliate Ontario Reign, where he again has a lone goal in four games.

He has NHL-level size, skill, speed, hands, shot and overall ability, but so far has refused to put in an NHL-level effort in practices and games. It seems like he feels he should be able to glide on talent alone, like Thomas Vanek a decade ago, with a disdain for good defensive positioning.

Maybe we're looking at an Evgenii Dadonov-type of situation, where he needs to post good numbers in the KHL to develop a thirst for more and come back to North America wanting to surpass himself.

Still, it adds to a pretty uninspiring list of first-round failures (in terms of helping the team, not sheer talent) for Montréal, with all of these players now playing elsewhere at various levels or just plain retired from the game: Mike McCarron (25th overall, 2013), Alex Galchenyuk (third, 2012), Nathan Beaulieu (17th, 2011), Jarred Tinordi (22nd, 2010) and Louis Leblanc (18th, 2009). For the record, Galchenyuk already has a 30-goal season under his belt and I foresee at least five years in the point-per-game range for him starting in a couple of years; I also see McCarron posting a couple of 30-goal seasons, a few 50-point seasons with a peak at around 60-65. They will not all be busts.

It's hard to predict what will come of Scherbak, however.

Here he is sporting the Habs' red (home) uniform, making his entry as #38 in my Habs Numbers Project with the signed insert version of card #91 of the Rookie Premieres (Level 2) card from Upper Deck's 2017-18 Trilogy set:

It's a nice mix of silver (blue on the scan, silver to the naked eye) and gold foil, with a sticker autograph, signed in blue sharpie with his jersey number tagged at the end; it's both tacky and spectacular. This card is numbered 201/349. The NHL's 100th Anniversary patch is displayed below the right shoulder, attesting that the picture came from a regular-season game.