Henrik Zetterberg Jersey Card

If you know anything about me, you know I'm a romantic at heart. And not just beneath a gruff exterior - though I do have one - but I actually wear my heart on my sleeve at all times. I'm the type of guy who would drink a case of 24 beers in 24 hours at a rate of one per hour with friends in the summer, just to bask in the experience of spending an uninterrupted day of laid-back good times.

So when a scheduling quirk - a postponed game - made it so that Detroit Red Wings captain Henrik Zetterberg was going to play his 1000th NHL game on the final, farewell night of Joe Louis Arena, I almost cried. Then I saw a few of the tributes to the Joe and actually did:

Thanks for the memories, Joe. #Farewell2TheJoe pic.twitter.com/SikJyo60Lc

— Detroit Red Wings (@DetroitRedWings) April 10, 2017

Henrik Zetterberg honored prior to playing in his 1,000th career game and the final game at Joe Louis Arena. #Z1000 #Farewell2TheJoe pic.twitter.com/k0RzDGpTke

— Detroit Red Wings (@DetroitRedWings) April 10, 2017

Growing up in the 1980s, there was talk of Original Six teams and all, but most of them were a joke: the New York Rangers and Chicago Blackhawks hadn't won a Stanley Cup since before my parents were born, the Toronto Maple Leafs and Boston Bruins hadn't won since my parents were kids - although the Bruins came close in 1988 and 1990, falling to my Edmonton Oilers both times - and the Wings would sometimes fail to make the playoffs altogether in a division where four teams made it and the same number of teams usually played below .500. The Montréal Canadiens were the only Original Six team that remained among the league's prestigious clubs, though 1995 was just around the corner, and with it a decade of shame.

Pre-salary cap, when owner Mike Illitch bought the Wings - and the Detroit Tigers, really - he went all-out to have his teams be as best as possible, hiring the best people to make the best decisions to best represent his beloved city. The Wings were among the league's biggest spenders - with the Rangers, Philadelphia Flyers and Colorado Avalanche - and purchased themselves the last consecutive champion teams (1997 and 1998) and a 2002 championship by developping their own talent to build around, sure (Zetterberg, Pavel Datsyuk, Steve Yzerman, Nicklas Lidstrom, Sergei Fedorov, Chris Osgood) but also signing the best available veterans who agreed to leave their egos at home and step into specific roles that went against everything individual achievement they may have accomplished in the past, including the likes of highest-scoring left winger Luc Robitaille, highest-scoring right winger Brett Hull, most over-rated right winger Brendan Shanahan, one of the best defensemen of all time in Chris Chelios, and former-star-goalies-for-hire Mike Vernon, Curtis Joseph and Dominik Hasek.

Lidstrom, Datsyuk and Zetterberg - along with a fine supporting cast - helped Detroit reach the third-longest consecutive playoff streak with 25 despite the salary cap era bringing forth unparalleled parity, a streak that ended this season. Now, Lidstrom's in the Hall Of Fame, Datsyuk is playing his final season(s) in Russia, and Zetterberg's 36 years old, which didn't stop him from leading the Wings in points with 68 in 82 games, good for 904 in 1000 games so far. He also has 120 in 137 playoff games.

Here he is wearing the Winged Wheel's white (then-home) uniform, on card #MM-HZ from Upper Deck's 2005-06 Bee Hive set and Matted Materials sub-set, which features a red game-worn jersey swatch:

Like a card I featured nearly four years ago, it shows both Zetterberg and Lidstrom (in the background), the Wings' back-to-back Swedish captains.

He's an Olympian gold (2006) and silver (2014) medalist with Team Sweden, and also holds all three medal types from the World Championships: gold (2006), silver (2003), and bronze (2001 and 2002).

Saku Koivu Bee Hive Jersey Card

So this is how it's going to be...

The captain-less Montréal Canadiens clinched a playoff spot by losing to the (also captain-less) Toronto Maple Leafs in overtime, earlier tonight. In the absence of a designated True Leader, the team's actual leaders, Andrei Markov, Michael Cammalleri, Brian Gionta and Maxim Lapierre tried to do everything themselves and couldn't get everybody on the team to rally together to help, so what we got were flashes of brilliance and a loss to the second-worst team in the league.

I'll be honest and admit the Habs were in control for most of the game, but the opponents played with more desperation, more passion - despite an evident imbalance in talent.

It kind of proves all of Saku Koivu's past nay-sayers wrong: both he and Alex Kovalev, when the situation demanded it, could step up - and most of the dressing room would follow suit, pushing together. They did had definite leadership skills - as do Markov, Cammalleri and Gionta, clearly - but the fact that they wore a 'C' on their jerseys added to their natural leadership, it signaled to the rest of the team ''we're all in this together, and they're the ones pointing the way''. Now, with the course of the ship still unidentified, the soldiers aren't certain which General to follow - all this at a time where the President (head coach Jacques Martin)'s orders and game system is clearly not working for the type of players he's dealing with, and in the decade we're in. It's like trying to fight with muskets in the computer-and-nuclear age...

All that for this: a 2005-06 Bee Hive jersey card (card #MM-SK, Matted Materials insert) of Saku Koivu, our last and longest-ever-in-tenure captain, by Upper Deck. Bee Hive was actually a brand of honey in Canada in the 50s and 60s that offered free hockey cards in their pots of honey, and most of their sets had a simple, framed design. These series are a tribute by Upper Deck, who figure an homage to an early set fits with the fact that they're also producing all of Bee Hive's former competitors' sets anyway, Parkhurst and O-Pee-Chee.

Ah, nostalgia!

Now name Markov captain so Gary Bettman has someone to hand the Cup to when we win it, goddamn it.