Matt Duchene Jersey Card

Joe Sakic pulled it off and essentially traded both Matt Duchene and Kyle Turris for terrific pulls in one swift move, sending Duchene to the Ottawa Senators (for Turris, former first-rounder Shane Bowers, goalie Andrew Hammond, and the Sens' 2018 first-round pick and 2019 third-rounder), then flipping Turris to the Nashville Predators for quality defensive prospect Samuel Girard, young point-per-game AHLer Vladislav Kamenev and their 2018 second-round draft pick.

That's right - the GM who was so inept that his head coach left two weeks before training camp last season, whose players abandoned before Christmas last year, who opted to protect an injury-prone $6M goalie instead of a sure-fire starter in one or two years, and who had only three NHL defensemen under contract 48 hours before handing in his start-of-the-season 23-player list just a month ago - essentially got three quality prospects, a body in net and three high draft picks for a guy who's known he was going to be traded for the better part of the last 15 months and was straddling the line between not wanting to play and no one wanting to play with him.

In doing so, he may have accelerated his rebuild by two entire seasons and may yet have a decent team when his true current star, Nathan MacKinnon, enters his prime.

There's something to be said about being able to learn on the job, especially if you're allowed to make mistakes.

And that's something that can also apply to Duchene, too. He hasn't been the best teammate in the past couple of years, with many veterans (Jean-Sébastien Giguère, Paul Stastny, Patrick Roy, Jarome Iginla) turning their backs on him and what seemed like selfish actions. Perhaps it was a misunderstanding, perhaps a lack of maturity, or perhaps they were just mistakes.

He has a chance to start anew now, on a team that clearly thinks it can contend in the near future, seeing as his contract will expire at the end of next season.

Here he is wearing the Avs' burgundy (now-home) uniform, on card #WM-DU from Upper Deck's 2013-14 SPx collection and Winning Materials sub-set:

It features two matching game-worn jersey swatches.

Matt Duchene Swatch Card

So... Matt Duchene.

Calder Trophy candidate in 2009-10, after being drafted third overall the previous summer by the Colorado Avalanche, the team he rooted for as a kid and whose captain was Joe Sakic, his childhood hero - now his general manager.

He followed his rookie season with a 27-goal, 67-point effort in 2010-11 before a serious injury detailed his third season, leaving him with merely 28 points in 58 games.

His next two seasons were excellent: 43 points in 47 games in the locked-out 2012-13 season, and 70 points (on 23 goals) in 71 games in 2013-14, and three assists in two playoff games. But he had another sub-par season last year, with 21 goals but just 55 total points in 82 games, and is off to an awful start this year with a lone goal (no assists) in 6 games so far.

Which brings the question: which is the real Matt Duchene? And with Nathan MacKinnon playing wing when he could be the team's #1 center, is it time to either slot Duchene in another role or - gasp! - consider trading him?

Reasons to keep him include his wealth of gold medals: 2008 U-17 Worlds, 2008 U-18 World Championships, 2008 Ivan Hlinka Tournament, 2012 Spengler Cup, 2014 Olympics, 2015 World Championships; most of which he was part of a support group on strong editions of Team Canada rather than the centerpiece.

Three seasons where he was close to a point-per-game pace; and yet, two very underwhelming ones as well.

At 5'11'' and 200 pounds, he's a little undersized in the Western Conference, which he would need to make up for with added intensity.

You could argue that he's perhaps just a little snake-bitten, as can be attested by Cam Ward's save from last night.

I haven't completely lost faith in him yet, but my patience is wearing a little thin. On a team with MacKinnon and Gabriel Landeskog as youthful building blocks and solid veterans like Alex Tanguay and Jarome Iginla, offense shouldn't be an issue. (Then again, a deeper defense corps who can make good passes would go a long way in helping the forwards keep the play in the offensive zone).

That being said, he's still just 24 years old. And here he is wearing the Avs' white (away) uniform, with a matching game-worn swatch, from Panini's 2011-12 Titanium set (card #49 of the Game-Worn Gear sub-set):

Can't wait to find out where this leads.

Matt Duchene Jersey Card

With his Olympic gold medal in Sochi, and now the gold medal from the World Championships in Prague over the weekend, Matt Duchene is now one Stanley Cup away from joining Sidney Crosby in the Triple Gold Club...

He is also a gold medal winner from the 2012 Spengler Cup, the 2008 U-18 championship and 2008 Ivan Hlinka Memorial Tournament (Junior U-18) as well as the 2008 U-17 World Hockey Challenge. Not bad, eh?

I was impressed by his performance at the Worlds this year, seeing as he was the third-line center (behind tournament MVP Jason Spezza and captain Crosby), still scoring 4 goals and 12 points in 10 games, getting his points but melting in the team-first mentality along with his Colorado Avalanche teammates Nathan MacKinnon, Ryan O'Reilly and Tyson Barrie.

I'd featured Duchene twice before, once with the Avs' white (away) jersey, and once in the pretty blue (alternate) one, so here he is in the burgundy (home) uniform, from Upper Deck's 2013-14 Series 1 set (card #GJ-MD of the UD Game Jersey sub-set:

Like the other two, it incorporates a burgundy game-worn jersey swatch - but this time it really matches the picture.

As was the case with many of the Avalanche's young stars, Duchene had an off year statistically, with merely 55 points in 70 games - although his 21 goals were in the vicinity of what can be expected of him, he's just usually stronger on the assists front.

Pundits have tried explaining the situation with ''pretend-fancy stats'', but I, for one, don't buy it: the Avs aren't a team that shoots blindly at the other net 40 times per game; they possess the puck and make plays through deft passes, not an over-abundance of shots. It's an anomaly in today's ''pray for a deflection'' NHL, but it's the closest thing to hockey one can play in 2015. The Avs just lacked a #3 and #4 defenseman to move the puck forward and may have missed André Benoit's contribution on that front - and the competition within the division improved greatly.

Matt Duchene Jersey Card

One player that I was really happy to see leaving Sochi with a gold medal - other than P.K. Subban - was without a doubt Matt Duchene, the young Colorado Avalanche leader who filled in John Tavares' skates admirably on a defense-first Team Canada.

He has worn the maple leaf 5 times internationally, all of them resulting in gold medals; in addition to his 2014 Olympic medal, he is also golden from the 2012 Spengler Cup, the 2008 U-18 championship and 2008 Ivan Hlinka Memorial Tournament (Junior U-18) as well as the 2008 U-17 World Hockey Challenge.

He has 50 points in 55 games so far this season with the Avs, leading the team, and his 19 goals fall only behind Nathan MacKinnon's 22 and Ryan O'Reilly's 21. His point total of 43 points (in 47 games) were also tops on the Avs last season, and his 17 goals were second only to Pierre-Alexandre Parenteau's 18.

He also had 19 points in 23 games overseas during the lock-out, so it's safe to assume his sub-par 2011-12 season (14 goals and 28 points in 58 games) was just a statistical anomaly brought on by bad luck, a string of injuries and a poor supporting cast.

Growing up a Québec Nordiques fan, my allegiances moved to Colorado with them in 1995, so I'm extremely happy with the franchise's turnaround under the watchful eye of Joe Sakic (mine and Duchene's favourite skater) and the masterful coaching of Patrick Roy.

So when a pack of Upper Deck's 2010-11 Ultimate Collection provided me with this card, I was giddy:

Like my previous jersey card of his, it bears a burgundy swatch, but this time the picture on the front of the card is from the Avs' current third jersey, mostly a beautiful shade of dark blue with burgundy shoulders and lines. It's card #UJ-MD in the set (the Ultimate Jerseys sub-set), and is numbered #80/100.

Great player, great design, great card.

Matt Duchene Jersey Card

For a guy who went third overall at the 2009 draft (behind John Tavares and Victor Hedman), Matt Duchene is carving out quite a career for himself. He is already the youngest player in Colorado Avalanche history to reach 100 points (beating out my all-time favourite player Joe Sakic, who spent an extra year at the junior level), and youngest ever to lead the team in scoring, the following season.

This season, he hasn't played since December 29th because of an injury, but he did gather 24 points in 39 games, including his very first career hat trick on November 4th.

This card is #AF-MD in Upper Deck's 2010-11 SP Game-Used set, and what I like about it the most isn't the unusually big swatch but the fact that it is numbered #1/100... that's right, I got the very first chunk of tissue tagged onto a card from this jersey, for this season. Everything about this card screams ''Awesome''!