Pavel Rosa Autograph Card

Pavel Rosa was destined to have a great NHL career. An elite shooter and passer with tremendous speed, all he needed was to be surrounded by tougher players to protect him from cheap shots - as his LHJMQ team the Hull Olympiques did in 1995-96 when they had Peter Worrell, Colin White, Mike Coveny (whom I fought twice in the same pre-season game that year and, yes, I was a goalie), Gordie Dwyer (whom I also fought), Mario Larocque (a distant cousin of mine), Sean Farmer and Russell Smith, all of whom were willing to stand up and protect the likes of Rosa, Martin Ménard and Jonathan Delisle, or those who dared come into contact with José Théodore.

That year, his rookie year in Juniors, Rosa accumulated 46 goals and 116 points in just 61 games, and improved to 63 goals and 152 points in just 68 games the following year. He also had fine seasons in the AHL with the Manchester Monarchs, even finishing as the league's leading scorer in 2003-04, but he was never really given a chance to shine with the Los Angeles Kings, and when the 2004-05 lock-out occurred, rather than remain in the AHL where he was dominating, he opted to move back to Europe, first with two seasons with the renowned Moscow HC Dynamo and eventually the KHL's Avantguard Omsk and the historical Swiss team Fribourg-Gotteron HC (founded in 1938, and whose logo was inspired the by Montréal Canadiens').

All told, Rosa played in 36 games with the Kings over 4 seasons, scoring 5 goals with 18 points. He scored twice in his very first NHL game, and there was one season where he had two points in two games but wasn't retained to stay.

Still, I consider him a considerable talent, and I'm very happy to have this 1999-2000 Be A Player Millennium Signature Series card (#125 in the set) of his from In The Game, showing him in the Kings' turn-of-the-millennium white (home) uniform, signed in black sharpie:

Donald Audette Autograph Card

I made my predictions for the first round of this playoff season on my regular blog, and I followed my heart for all of the series except one (I'm rooting for the Detroit Red Wings against the Boston Bruins, who I believe are a stronger team with a much better goalie). That means I'm rooting for the Los Angeles Kings in their series against the San Jose Sharks, so I thought I'd feature a card that referenced them:

It's from In The Game's 1999-2000 Be A Player Millennium Signature Series (card #121 in the set), a beautiful silver foil autographed insert card signed in thin black sharpie of Donald Audette, one of the consistent 25-30 goal scorer of the Dead Puck Era.

Oddly enough, in the year and a half he spent in L.A., he had a great impact, finishing second on the team in both goals and points in his lone full season with the team in 1998-99 despite playing in only 49 games. His 18 goals were a long way from Luc Robitaille's 39 (in 82 games), but two ahead of Glen Murray's total of 16 (in 61 games); his points total of 36 was far behind Robitaille's 74, but one ahead of Rob Blake's 35 (in 62 games) and two ahead of Jozef Stumpel's 34 (in 64 games).

He would have his best offensive output with the Atlanta Thrashers in 2000-01, with 32 goals, 39 assists and 71 points in just 64 games, which was his second-highest games total, behind only the 77 he played with the Buffalo Sabres in 1993-94. He never once played a full season.

All told, he finished his career with 735 NHL games played with 6 different teams (two stints with the Sabres), 260 goals, 249 assists, 509 points and 584 penalty minutes in the regular season. He also has 21 goals and 48 points in 73 career playoff games. He wasn't a Hall Of Famer, but his All-Star Game appearance (in 2001) wasn't a fluke either, he was a solid performer for most of his career.

These days, he's an amateur scout for the Montréal Canadiens, and I sent him a fan letter (through the team) earlier this season.

Brad Stuart Autograph Card

The San Jose Sharks keep finding ways to do well in the regular season and seed high in time for the playoffs... hopefully they also keep up with the early exit strategy...

After 41 games, the Sharks had 49 points, and Brad Stuart had 5 - all assists - which is normal, considering the bulk of prime powerplay minutes go to Dan Boyle and Brent Burns. As I mentioned back in September, he is back with the Sharks now after six-and-a-half seasons spent with the Boston Bruins, Los Angeles Kings, Calgary Flames and Detroit Red Wings, with whom he won the 2008 Stanley Cup.

Below is a card from In The Game's 1999-2000 Be A Player Millennium Signature Series (card #214, labeled 'First Signature Card' on the back), where he is sporting the late-1990s Sharks' away jersey, one I liked the colours to but hated the design, with what seems now like the ancestors of the Reebok RBK Edge 'piping' patterns:

Teal, grey and black work well together, just, you know, not that way.

Guy Hebert Autograph Card

I'm preparing for two hockey pool drafts (a keeper in its second year tomorrow, a one-season deal on Saturday), and my 2013 predictions for my regular blog, and I have to say I don't think the Anaheim Ducks will be making the playoffs this year, which doesn't bode well for my keeper pool, seeing as I have both Corey Perry and Ryan Getzlaf in it...

But it got me thinking about this Guy Hebert card from In The Game's 1999-00 Be A Player Millenium Signature Series (card #5) - yes, another one from that set - signed in thin black sharpie!

I love Hebert's position in this card, awaiting the shot, focused, looking like a gladiator, his equipment white like his Mighty Ducks Of Anaheim (home) jersey.

Since the Ducks changed their name, we can almost view the Mighty Ducks as either a period of the team's history, or just a different team altogether, and Hebert, to me, pretty much represented the team. Sure, many will point to Paul Kariya and Teemu Selanne as the key figures, but Kariya never produced as much without Selanne, who was lucky enough to also have Saku Koivu share to a special bond with.

But Hebert made Team USA 4 times (at the 1990 Goodwill Games, 1994 World Championships, 1996 World Cup and 1998 Nagano Olympics), the NHL All-Star team and, most importantly, had a character named after him in the short-lived animation TV series.

Also, apart from his first 37 NHL games (played with the St. Louis Blues) and last 13 (New York Rangers), he played all of his NHL games in Anaheim.

Mike Ricci Autograph Card

I was a big Mike Ricci fan as a teenager, maybe not when he was drafted 4th overall by the Philadelphia Flyers in 1990 leading me to own over 100 copies of his 1990 Score rookie card, but certainly when the Flyers traded him to the Québec Nordiques with half a team for crybaby Eric Lindros.

The Nordiques being my favourite team, I saw a lot of Ricci on an up-and-coming team featuring Joe Sakic, Mats Sundin, Owen Nolan and Ron Tugnutt, and my heart followed them when the team became the Colorado Avalanche and won the Stanley Cup.

He was a gritty forward with a knack for scoring important goals, but when the Avs traded him to the San Jose Sharks - essentially for a draft pick that became Alex Tanguay - he added the title of ''reliable two-way forward'' to his resume. He helped make the Shalks perennial contenders for the new millenium, with the help of Nolan and Vincent Damphousse, of course. Speaking of which, this is a signed insert from In the Game's 1999-00 Be A Player Millennium Signature Series (card #216), signed in skinny black sharpie; seeing as I knew I'd write about this set when I stumbled upon some of the cards I already owned from it during the Holidays, I couldn't pass this one up when I saw it at $2 shipping included on Ebay. It's my only Ricci memorabilia, though, so maybe I'll write to him this winter, seeing as he's back into the Sharks' organization as an advisor nowadays.

Two Stéphane Fiset Autograph Cards

In keeping with yesterday's theme of Los Angeles Kings goalies, I'll feature Stéphane Fiset today, one of my favourite goalies of the 1990s.

I was lucky enough to pull autographs of his in packs of successive seasons of cards; the packs were purchased on Ebay at two bucks apiece, and opened within weeks of one another, last summer. Both are signed in black sharpie and made of black/silver foil.

First, wearing the Kings' white (home) jersey, from In The Game's 1998-98 Be A Player Signature Series (card #214):

And, second, from ITG's 1999-00 Be A Player Millenium Signature Series (card #119), here he is wearing the Kings' black (away) uniform:

Both cards show his usual butterfly stance, his center of gravity very low (I always had the impression he was trying to sit on the back of his skates when I was watching him), but playing ''wide'' and taking up a lot of left-to-right prime real estate.

I didn't follow him that closely with the Kings, for a variety of reasons ranging from a lack of interest in the sport in the late 1990s/early 2000s, the fact that I'm on the East Coast and he was on the West - time zone differences, plus not all games were available to all regions back then - and because I was mostly interested in the Québec Nordiques / Colorado Avalanche franchise he was no longer a part of.

But from 1990 to 1996, I saw over a hundred of his games and was rooting for him with all of my heart.

Jamie Storr Autograph Card

I was sorting through my cards while reading in the paper about Los Angeles Kings goalie Jonathan Quick's recovery from a pre-season operation when I came across one from their previous saviour in nets, Jamie Storr.

I talked about Storr extensively in a past post, so I won't repeat the same thing here about the only goalie in history to win 5 gold medals for Canada before playing a single NHL game - U-17 (1991), under-18 (1992), World Juniors (1994 and 1995) and World Championships (1994) - but I will say this: no goalie was ever among the best of his profession while wearing Heaton equipment; true stars went with the brand's higher-grade product, Brian's, not that it explains why Storr was bigger in Europe than in North America, but it's a bizarre coincidence.

I like that he signed this 1999-00 Be A Player Millenium Signature Series card (#123 in the set) by In The Game on the pad; the black sharpie contrasts well with the pad's white leather, whereas it would have been invisible anywhere else on the card because of its dark foil background (reminiscent of Upper Deck's Black Diamond sets) and the Kings' black uniform.

Other fun fact about this card: it says on the back it's Storr's ''First Signature Card'':

I guess it's BAP/ITG's way of making up for not having been there early enough to have him get a rookie card. I really like the action shots, too, especially the one on the back.