Avs Preview: Milan Hejduk Dual Jersey Card

This will likely be the preface to all of this year's Season Preview posts: 2020 is a different beast and requires adaptability; in my case, it means the joint posts with my "main/personal" blog will not be in the "player here/analysis there" format but rather the entire scope of the analysis will take place here and the player will have some sort of direct connection to what's written. Caveats: at this point, despite the season being set to start in Mid-January, several impact players haven't found a team yet and quite a few teams are currently above the salary cap, which means there is much maneuvering left to do.

The biggest change the Colorado Avalanche (team links lead to Amazon sponsored pages, player links to relevant pages on my blog, and news links to their source) made this off-season is completing the switch to new uniforms from navy blue to baby blue by removing the black helmets, gloves and pants and making them blue as well. It's both gorgeous and extremely bizarre. Apart from that, GM Joe Sakic didn't overhaul his Stanley Cup-contending roster, with depth players departing (Nikita Zadorov, Vladislav Namestnikov, Colin Wilson, Mark Barberio, Kevin Connaughton and Matt Nieto), and depth players coming in (Brandon Saad, Devon Toews, Dennis Gilbert and Mikka Salomaki). After a career year at the age of 36, I also expect Sakic to obtain value for Ian Cole via trade, possibly for a high draft pick. I see him going back to a former team like the Pittsburgh Penguins, St. Louis Blues or Toronto Maple Leafs.

What makes their odds look good:
They have the most valuable NHL forward in Nathan MacKinnon, who is one of the three best forwards in the game yet only makes half of Connor McDavid's salary, leaving plenty of room under the cap for Mikko Rantanen, Gabriel Landeskog, Nazem Kadri, Saad, Samuel Girard, goalies Pavel Francouz and Philipp Grubauer and eventually star defensemen Cale Makar and Bowen Byram when they get off their ELCs. We'll see ten years from now if the Edmonton Oilers end up having as many Cups as the Avs, but my gut tells me "no" (unless they each have zero or one).

Question marks:
The Avalanche do not have question marks anywhere on their roster. Not many things stand in their way of a championship, save for Covid-19, the Vegas Golden Knights in their own division, and the Tampa Bay Lightning being the reigning champs and still the best hockey team of the past 20 years on paper, with or without MVP Nikita Kucherov.

Outlook:
Sakic has one job: to not mess around with the roster. I think he knows it. This is a contender for the next five years as is.

Prediction:
First in the West Division.

This is the second time in the team's 25-year history that they have the make-up of a dynasty; unlike the 1995-2002 team, however, they do not need to have a Patrick Roy-level legend in net to get there, partly because there is currently no one like that in the league, and also because the game itself has changed and is more methodical and chess-like at nearly every position save for a few elite game-changers. The Avalanche have MacKinnon and Makar that fit the bill, and Rantanen is just a notch below.

If the "original" Avs had two MacKinnons in the form of Hall of Famers Sakic and Peter Forsberg (there was no salary cap at the time), and their Rantanen was Milan Hejduk, no slouch himself, as The Hockey Writers have aptly shown here. In addition to matching or surpassing Sakic and Forsberg on many an occasion, he did win the Rocket Richard Trophy as the lone 50-goal scorer of the 2002-03 season and stil only got a Second Team All-Star nod at his position at the end of the year, behind Todd Bertuzzi. Talk about a clash in style and personalities...

375 goals and 805 points in the Dead Puck Era (including 98 points in the worst of it in the early 00s) is equivalent to 1200 points in the 1980s. Never forget Hejduk, he was a heck of a player.

Here he is wearing the Avs' Reebok Edge burgundy (home) uniform with the awful vertical piping on cad #AF-MH from Upper Deck's 2008-09 SP Game-Used Edition collection and Authentic Fabrics/Dual Jerseys sub-sets:

It features not one but two matching game-worn jersey swatches. These types of cards were much thinner back then, they feel thinner than many modern base cards.

Tomas Fleischmann & Milan Hejduk Dual Jersey Card

Today's card comes from Upper Deck's 2005-06 Rookie Update set (card #237 of the Rookie Inspirations sub-set), a Dual Jersey Card featuring a rookie and a veteran that I got as an add-on in a trade roughly a year ago:

I guess Tomas Fleischmann and Milan Hejduk were paired on this card because they're both Czechs... because there was no way for UD to know they would eventually both suit up for the Colorado Avalanche in 2010-11, with Fleischmann posting 21 points in 22 games to revive his career before moving onto the Florida Panthers.

He had three other seasons where his point production averaged nearly one per game, in 2009-10 with the Washington Capitals (23 goals, 28 assists, 51 points in 69 games) and in consecutive years with the Panthers, in 2011-12 (27 goals, 34 assists, 61 points in 82 games) and 2012-13 (12 goals, 23 assists, 35 points in 48 games).

Paired with David Desharnais on an unusually strong third line with the Montréal Canadiens this season, he currently stands at 10 points (4 goals, 6 assists) in 13 games having signed a one-year deal after attending training camp on a PTO. He had three points against the Winnipeg Jets last night in a 5-1 win.

Still, those numbers are far from Hejduk's, who won the Maurice ''Rocket'' Richard Trophy as the NHL's best goal-scorer (with 50) in 2002-03 and finished his All-Star career with 805 points (375 goals, 430 assists) in 1020 games (plus another 34-42-76 in 112 playoff games, culminating with the 2001 Stanley Cup). He surpassed the 70-point mark on five separate occasions, with a high of 98 in 2002-03.

Internationally, Fleischmann has a bronze medal from the 2002 U-18s, while Hejduk has Olympic gold (1998) and bronze (2006), as well as a bronze medal from the 1998 World Championships and a third-place finish at the 2004 World Cup. With Jaromir Jagr and Dominik Hasek, he was the Czech Team at the turn of the millennium.

Milan Hejduk Autographed Card

I was waiting for an official word on Milan Hejduk's retirement, he was supposed to hold a press conference some time in December, but it never happened.

So I'll take advantage of the Czech Republic's win over Slovakia to honor the Olympic medalist (gold in 1998, bronze in 2006) and former Rocket Richard Trophy winner today, now that his career statistics are likely etched in stone at 1020 games played, 375 goals and 805 points (plus a 34-42-76 career total in 112 playoff games), a Stanley Cup, an All-Rookie Team and three All-Star Games.

He currently stands second in the Colorado Avalanche/Québec Nordiques franchise in games played, fourth in goals and points, fifth in assists and second in game-winning goals.

He only played for the Avs in the NHL, and only played for HC ČSOB Pojišťovna Pardubice in the Czech league, with whom he has also won a championship; he's very loyal.

I featured him in 2012 with this card, but knew I had another lying somewhere, because he had signed both on the same pre-season trip. Here is the second card, showing him in the Avs' white (home) uniform, from Upper Deck's beautiful 2005-06 Power Play set (card #24), signed in thin black sharpie:

(I'm saving another signed item, an 8X10, for when he actually does officially announce his retirement.)

Milan Hejduk Autographed Card

One sub-story that was a bit looked over this week when Gabriel Landeskog became the youngest captain in NHL history this week was that it meant Milan Hejduk was relinquishing his title, after having been the third in Colorado Avalanche history, after Joe Sakic and Adam Foote.

Hejduk's reasoning behind his decision was that after failing to reach the 20-goal plateau for the first time in his career (after 12 consecutive seasons of doing so), he felt his role had diminished on the team, and he felt someone playing on the ''top two lines'' should deserve to lead the team.

My thoughts on this?

1. It proves he is a good leader
2. When Foote was the Avs' captain after a run with the Columbus Blue Jackets, he was no longer an elite player either...

Nonetheless, he remains an assistant captain (with Paul Stastny) and will be there to pick up the mantle should Landeskog get injured.

This is card #25 in Fleer's 2005-06 Hot Prospects, set manufactured by Upper Deck. He signed it in thin black sharpie a few years ago at a pre-season game between the Avs and the Montréal Canadiens held at the Avs' former home, the Québec Colisée Pepsi. With Tim Thomas on hiatus, Hejduk is officially the only Québec Nordiques draft pick (1994, 87th overall) still playing in the NHL.

I'll try to write him this year to get him to sign cards with other Avs uniforms, including their current third jersey.