Michael McCarron Autographed Card

On December 29, I went to Place Bell to see the Laval Rocket play the Charlotte Checkers, a game the Checkers dominated where one goalie (Laval's Étienne Marcoux) and two skaters (one from each team) were clear standouts, despite not racking many points in a nine-goal game won 5-4 by Charlotte.

For the home team, Michael McCarron nabbed an assist, but he was clearly - by far - the best player wearing red. He was like a member of the 1990s Legion Of Doom playing against AHLers; the day when he will put all the ingredients together, his impact will likely be as massive as Milan Lucic's.

As it stands, he's 23 (two years from hitting his prime as a power forward), 6'6", 230 pounds, with a strong, accurate shot, deceptive and impressive speed, and a willingness to knock opponents over like bowling pins, whether they're in his way or not.

I'm not saying he'll be a constant threat to score 35 goals at the NHL level, but I can see a 20-25-goal scorer, 40-50-points per year with a high of 65 once, who is a driving force of play for at least t5hree years, hopefully five. He's already too good for the AHL, he deserves a third-line NHL job until he can prove to be a top-six forward.

He signed his first OHL card in blue sharpie for me after the game, #15 in In The Game's 2013-14 Heroes And Prospects set:

It shows him sporting the London Knights' white (home) uniform, the team he wore an "A" with for a year and won the Memorial Cup against (as a member of the Oshawa Generals, who traded for him midway through the 2014-15 season).

He has so far won three silver medals playing for Team USA - at the 2012 U-17 Championships, and the 2018 World Juniors and World U-18 Championships.

Anthony Stolarz: Two Autographed Cards

When the Philadelphia Flyers selected Anthony Stolarz with the 45th overall pick (second round) in 2012, the plan was to let the first New Jersey-born NHL-quality goalie slowly develop into a #1 goalie. Whether it was going to take seven years to become a top-level puck stopper (Carey Price) or nine (Jake Allen), GM Ron Hextall was not going to throw him to the wolves sooner than necessary.

Five years in, he saw his first 7 games of action in 2016-17, winning the first one, earning a shutout in the second, ending up with a 2-1-1 record, .928 save percentage and 2.07 goals-against average, easily the tops on the team ahead of Michal Neuvirth and Steve Mason.

That being said, his season in the AHL had its ups and downs, with a 2.92 GAA and .911 save percentage that ranked him behind Alex Lyon. So when Hextall extended both Lyon and Stolarz earlier today, it sent a clear message that Stolarz is not ready to be an NHL backup yet in his general manager's eyes. He'll need to dominate consistently in the AHL before getting that chance, which explains why Hextall also signed free agent on-again, off-again starter Brian Elliott for two years on July 1st.

I look forward to watching the 6'6" goalkeeper's development throughout the years. For now, however, here's a look at the uniforms he wore with the OHL's London Knights, starting with the black "away" one, with a throwback to the team's 1970s logo, on card #33 from In The Game's 2012-13 Between the Pipes set and CHL Prospects sub-set:

And here he is wearing the white alternate home uniform with the KNIGHTS downward wordmark, on card #12 from ITG's 2013-14 Heroes And Prospects set:

He signed both in blue sharpie, tagging his jersey number (43) at the end, during the 2014-15 AHL season, after a Lehigh Valley Phantoms game against the Hamilton Bulldogs.

The cards show his goaltending stance very well: he's a tall, butterfly goalie who hasn't learned to keep his stick blade stuck to the ice and uses the "patting glove hand" method that cuts out some of the angles but reduces occurrences of reflex stops, particularly the middle two feet of the left post. I usually prefer when my students extend their hand outwards a little more to the left and not so much to the front - I'd rather their stance say "try me" than show fear and play safe, which I also call "play dead". But I've never played in the NHL, and Stolarz will one day star in it.

Fun fact regarding the cards: they do not agree on where he was born:

For the record, he was born in Edison and raised in Jackson.

Vladislav Namestnikov Autographed card

Here's the second of five cards I got in a trade that was a year in the making, this time of Tampa Bay Lightning young gun Vladislav Namestnikov, seen in his London Knights - winners of the Memorial Cup last weekend - beautiful white (home) uniform:

That's card #178 from In The Game's 2011-12 Heroes And Prospects set, which he signed in blue sharpie.

Many people see the 27th overall pick at the 2011 draft as an Evgeny Kuznetsov-type of player in the making. He already dominated in the AHL in 2014-15, scoring at a point-per-game pace leading to a recall in time for the Bolts to make a deep playoff run and dressed for 80 games in 2015-16, scoring 14 goals and posting 35 points.

As he and Jonathan Drouin develop, perhaps Tampa no longer needs Steven Stamkos the way they did in the last three of four seasons after all.

Scott Harrington Jersey Card

So, crazy free agent market, eh?

Too bad all the so-called ''experts'' only had the Phil Kessel trade on their minds...

Kessel is probably still one of the NHL's top-5 shooters. And so much has been said about his physical shape, effort level (or lack thereof), and disdain for the media that I won't go at lengths about it here, but with centers like Evgeni Malkin and Sidney Crosby, he may very well (and definitely should) reach the 40-goal plateau for the first time in his career with the Pittsburgh Penguins.

After all was said and done, apart from draft picks, Kessel, defenseman Tim Erixon (already on his fifth team since 2011-12 and fourth since 2014) and forward Tyler Biggs will make their way to the Pens, while defenseman Scott Harrington, and forwards Kasperi Kapanen and Nick Spaling will head to the Toronto Maple Leafs, who also signed P.A. Parenteau and brought back Daniel Winnick to the fold today.

My focus today will be on former London Knights captain Harrington, a ''character'' defenseman who is merely 22 years old. London has one of the best Juniors programs in Canada, headed by the Hunter brothers (Mark is now a Leafs executive, Dale Hunter is back coaching), so Harrington learned to develop a complete game from a relatively young age.

He was considered a two-way defenseman in the OHL/CHL, but his offensive statistics were actually better at the AHL level with the Wilkes-Barre/Scranton Penguins (24 points in 76 games in 2013-14 and 12 points in 48 games in 2014-15) than in London (81 points in 206 games from 2009-13), so his game's improving.

And yet, the 54th-overall pick of the 2011 draft was always seen as a tall (6'2''), built (205 pounds so far), smooth-skating, positionally-sound, smart player. If he can put points up on the board as well, he'll turn into much more than many had envisioned him becoming.

Internationally, he's suited up for Team Canada, winning silver for Team Ontario at the 2010 U-17s and bronze at the 2012 World Juniors, and with a fourth-place finish at the 2013 World Juniors, where he was sporting the alternate captain's ''A''.

But the ''C'' remains a definite possibility in the future, as can be attested by this card showing him with the Knights' black uniform, from In The Game's 2012-13 Heroes And Prospects set (#M-35 of the Game-Used Jersey sub-set, the Black Version variant):

It contains a huge white-beige swatch. I got it in a trade a year or two ago, with other CHL jersey cards going both ways.