Lyle Odelein Autograph Card

Lyle Odelein was the Columbus Blue Jackets' very first captain, serving in that capacity for their first two seasons, before they traded him to the Chicago Blackhawks for Jaroslav Spacek. He'd previously acted as alternate captain for both the Montréal Canadiens and New Jesey Devils, and both in successful Stanley Cup runs (the Habs in 1993, the Devils in 2000).

He was a tough customer, but not an actual enforcer; he didn't back down from a fight but rarely instigated it. Instead, he rarely made defensive-zone mistakes for most of his career (save the early years as he was learning the ropes) but only once did he really make a notable and amazing offensive contribution, an end-to-end rush in which he deked everybody and scored on Ed Belfour. There was also the time where he had 5 assists in a single game, tying a Habs record he now shares with Sheldon Souray and Doug Harvey (for my money, the best defenseman in NHL history).

So, yeah, he may not have been a superstar, but he was kind of a big deal.

So here he is wearing the Jackets' original blue uniform, without the "C", so during a pre-season game, from In The Game's 2000-01 Be A Player Signature Series set (it's the signed insert version of card #88, the silver variant), which he signed on-card in thin black sharpie:

I very much prefer their current uniforms; these original ones are too simple, with too much of one colour and not enough design or thought having gone into it.

Lyle Odelein Autograph Card

My friends and I still refer to a goal scored by a defenseman after an end-to-end rush as a... Lyle Odelein goal.

Sure, these days, it's more likely it'll happen from P.K. Subban's stick, and our parents fill us up with tales of how Bobby Orr invented those types of rushes (then our grandparents correct them and say Doug Harvey did so a decade before him), but that's also how Odelein scored his first - and what seems now like his lone - NHL goal for the Montréal Canadiens.

He wasn't awful by any stretch of the imagination, but his talents were more of the stay-at-home type, blocking shots, and he had a knack for sacrificing himself and taking on fights when he really shouldn't have had to, except the Habs then, just like now, lacked an actual enforcer (pretty much since the day the Anaheim Mighty Ducks chose Todd Ewen in the expansion draft). He finished his NHL career with 2316 penalty minutes, good for the 29th spot of all time.

Odelein was part of the Habs' record 24th Stanley Cup-winning team (1993), also the last time a Canadian team won the Cup. GM Réjean Houle traded him to the New Jersey Devils in 1996, though (for Stéphane Richer), which is why this 1997-98 Be A Player signed insert card (card #17, signed in black sharpie) by Pinnacle Brands features him wearing their red (away) uniform; he's also sporting the assistant captain's 'A', which he also wore in Montréal. He was the Columbus Blue Jackets' first captain.