Vaclav Prospal Autographed Card

It's been a few seasons since the Philadelphia Flyers were considered serious contenders, but I feel they're on the verge of breaking out - not this year, but the way GM Ron Hextall has built his roster and taken his time bringing his players up in a way that he'll be able to keep most of them if not all under the salary cap for a long time, as soon as goalie Anthony Stolarz is ready to take over the #1 job between the pipes.

Since breaking into the NHL 50 years ago, the Flyers have been able to build a Stanley Cup finalist every decade, which is rather impressive. The team from the mid-1990s, starring Hextall for much of it, the Legion of Doom (Eric Lindros, John LeClair and Mikael Renberg) up front, Team Canada defenseman Éric Desjardins, Rod Brind'Amour, Paul Coffey and so many more was pretty memorable despite never winning a championship.

One long-time NHLer was drafted to fit right in with that group, in the third round (71st overall) of the 1993 draft: Vaclav Prospal. Unfortunately, it was not to be, as Prospal was traded along with Pat Falloon and a second-round pick for the Ottawa Senators' Alexandre Daigle, in January 1998.

Prospal would spend parts of four seasons with the Sens, with whom he had his first 20-goal and 55-point season (1999-2000), then half a season with the Florida Panthers before getting traded to the Tampa Bay Lightning, where he had his finest seasons in the NHL in three separate stints with the team:

From HockeyDB

As you can see, he narrowly missed being part of the 2004 Stanley Cup-winning Bolts team...

Although he was eventually bought out from the last three years of his final deal with the Lightning, he did play well for the New York Rangers (where he was also an alternate captain) and Columbus Blue Jackets - for two years apiece - after his time in Tampa.

Here, though, in keeping with my theme of featuring the same team on each of my blogs for all of September as I make my 2017-18 predictions public, I will show him wearing the Flyers' white (then-home) 1980s-1990s uniform, making a play along the boards in front of the New Jersey Devils' John MacLean, on card #McD-39 from Upper Deck's 1997-98 McDonald's / Ice set and Ice Breakers sub-set, which he signed in blue sharpie in 2012 or 2013:

I am particularly fond of how the signature does not bleed through his body on the reverse of the plastic see-through card:

He missed the 1998 Olympics because of an injury but did earn a bronze medal with the rest of the Czech Team at the 2006 Torino Games to go with his 2000 and 2005 World Championship gold medals.

He retired in January 2014.

Christopher Higgins Autographed Card

It's been an off-kilter year for Christopher Higgins, what with posting just 4 points in 33 games with the Vancouver Canucks, being sent to the AHL to play for the Utica Comets, and getting bought out of the final year of his contract by the team.

But things are looking up, as the Calgary Flames - now coached by former Canucks assistant Glen Gulutzan - have invited him to training camp on a try-out offer.

Flames GM Brad Treliving had this to say about the former first-rounder (14th overall in 2002):

Chris had a tough year in Vancouver. But prior to that, he was a good player, he was a productive player. There’s some versatility in his game, in terms of being able to play either wing. He’s a very good penalty-killer. And he’s an experienced guy. I know we get to the 30 age-mark and everybody starts to quiver a bit, but there’s still some hockey left in him. He’s going to come in and compete for a spot, and it’s always good to have competition in camp.

You look at the year prior to last, he was an important player in Vancouver. I think when you really analyze last year, he suffered an injury early in the pre-season and never got his footing. There are some indicators - you look at his career shooting percentage, where it’s been (9.7%) as opposed to last year (5.9%). Obviously, there was a drop-off.
Now, can he get back to the form he was at a year or two ago? If he can, then good for him and potentially good for us. So we’ll see.

No promises, but at least there's the belief and hope that he can rebound, although no one in the hockey world expects him to hit the 20-goal mark that he reached three times with the Montréal Canadiens on Saku Koivu's left wing.

Speaking of which, here's his rookie card from Upper Deck's 2006-07 McDonald's set (and Rookie Review / Recrues En Revue sub-set), which he signed in fading blue sharpie prior to being a part of the infamous Scott Gomez trade:

It's card #RR14 in the set and shows him wearing the Habs' white (then-home) uniform. There's an error on the back of the card, where his statistics line shows that of Alexander Perezhogin (9 goals, 10 assists and 19 points in 67 games) instead of his own (23 goals and 15 assists for 38 points in 80 games).

He has suited up for Team USA three times - at the 2002 and 2003 World Juniors, and at the 2009 World Championships - losing in the bronze medal game each time.

Nikolai Antropov: 6 Autographed Cards

What a great return!

For most Toronto Maple Leafs fans, Nikolai Antropov was a decent player who never quite met the expectations they had for him. The giant 6'6'', 245-pound center never became the point-per-game first-liner they thought they were getting when the team chose him 10th overall in the 1998 draft ahead of All Stars like Alex Tanguay, Scott Gomez, Simon Gagné, Mike Ribeiro, Brad Richards, Andrei Markov, Shawn Horcoff, and other notable players like Mike Fisher and Brian Gionta. But the team may have been tempted to pick Antropov well ahead of his projected second round status because he'd just scored 11 goals and 26 points in a single game against Iceland's men's team in a ''friendly'' international game.

As a Montréal Canadiens fan, however, I can assure you he loved playing my home team, against whom he was always dominant.

The card on the left shows him wearing the Leafs blue (away) uniform and is from In The Game's flagship 2003-04 In the Game set (card #89), back when they had a license to produce NHL cards. The card on the right, where he is seen wearing the white (home) uniform, is from Pacific's 2000-01 McDonald's Prism set (card #31), another defunct brand. McDonald's cards are now produced by Upper Deck. Notice the card on the left has him wearing #11 and the one on the right sees him with #11, but he signed both with #80...

(continued in the next post)

Guillaume Latendresse: 4 Autographed Cards

Guillaume Latendresse is an under-rated sniper and power forward often criticized either for lack of speed - which isn't entirely true, it's more that he's far from graceful in his stride, however his hits totals always show he's often near the puck - or lack of commitment to being in shape. These criticisms are odd, considering he has always been a good point producer at every level.

From the day he was chosen second only to Sidney Crosby at the LHJMQ draft, he had 49, 78 and 83-point seasons in juniors, which led to his being picked in the second round by the Montréal Canadiens, where he started his career. While with the Habs, he had the NHL's highest point-per-minute played ratio in the league, but hometown critics were too strong, and he was traded to the Minnesota Wild, where he scored 25 goals in a mere 55 games to cap off the 2009-10 season, before scoring the very first goal of the 2010-11 season on his way to an injury-crippled 11-game, 6-point year.

This year, as of writing this entry, he has 1 goal, 4 assists, good for 5 points in seven games, and he stands second on the Wild.

I'm confident he'll silence his critics at some point, and they'll just let him play; perhaps at that moment he'll shatter the 30-goal plateau consistently, like a modern-day Keith Tkachuk.

I sent all 4 of these cards (care of the Wild) at the end of last season, on March 29, 2011, and received them back, signed in black sharpie, on October 4, 2011. He added his number below his signature - 84 with the Habs (the first NHL player to wear that number, by the way), and 48 with the Wild.

The card on the left, the Habs' classic red jersey, is from Upper Deck's beautiful 2007-08 SP Authentic collection (card #18), while the one on the right, in the Canadiens' white uniform, is from the equally eye-catching and unique 2007-08 McDonald's set (card #27), also from UD; it's all-foil, relief printing.

Unfortunately, I didn't have Guillaume wearing the Wild's home uniform, only the (white) away jersey, but he was kind enough to still sign both: on the left, a 2010-11 Score card (#254) from Panini, and a UD 2010-11 Black Diamond (card #69), which, ironically, looks darker and almost better on the scan than in person.

For having played in summer pick-up games with him and other NHLers such as Jan Bulis, Martin Havlat, and a slew of others, I can tell you this: he'll always match whatever talent's on the ice to be the most effective player - not the flashiest, but among the most productive.