Nicklas Grossmann Autograph Card

Nicklas Grossmann was much-maligned with the Philadelphia Flyers, particularly last season. ''Fans'' were putting it on in online forums, and even when he wasn't making mistakes nor taking penalties, he just had some asking ''is he a disaster waiting to happen? When will the floor fallfrom under him?''

He's a former winger turned into a defenseman, and has now just had two consecutive 14-point seasons (including 5 goals in 2014-15), and he just finished with a +8 on the worst defense in the league and an anemic offense as well. But his ''possession statistics'' didn't match up to the rest of the team's, so ''analytics fans'' were angry.

He's not a first-pairing defenseman, that's a given. Ideally, on a contending team, he could be a 15-minute-per-game guy, and  17-minuter, bottom-pairing guy on an average team. You need those types of players to make up a team. But Flyers fans needed a scapegoat, and found him and Andrew MacDonald.

So this summer, GM Ron Hextall ''made a miracle happen'' according to some by trading Grossmann and Chris Pronger's contract to the Phoenix Coyotes for Sam Gagner.

Here's a card of Grossmann's before the spelling of his last name was corrected in North America (it ends with two Ns):

It shows him wearing the Flyers' current/retro white (away) uniform and is from Upper Deck's 2012-13 Artifacts set (card #A-NG of the Autofacts sub-set); it's part of two cards of the same set I found in an old box that I had totally forgotten I had.

Unlike many who criticize him, Grossmann has two World Championship medals, bronze (2009) and silver (2011), acquired while playing with Team Sweden.

Nicklas Grossmann Autograph Card

(team and product links go to sponsored Amazon products, player links go to related pages on my blog, news links go to source pages)

Now that I've digressed with an awesome Henrik Zetterberg return and a tribute to Scott Niedermayer, let's get back to that 2012-13 Fleer Retro box break...

My fifth hit was also the fifth defenseman and fourth with the 1996-97 Skybox Autographics design; they do, after all, come in every ten packs...

It's card #96-NG in the set, and though it's a bit over the top in the multitudes of inserts, it's a great idea from Upper Deck. Also, Nicklas Grossman looks right at home wearing the Philadelphia Flyers' uniform.

Grossman was originally a second-round (56th overall) pick of the Dallas Stars in 2004, and toiled around with their AHL affiliate Iowa Stars for a few seasons before making the jump to the NHL. He was even voted the AHL team's Most Improved Player after his first season, during which he was converted into a defenseman rather than a right winger. The Flyers acquired him in exchange for a second- and a third-round pick.

While I can see him notching one or two 15-to-20-point seasons in the near future, he is not exactly of the point-per-game variety; he plays a complete game and even managed to post a -1 season last year with a Flyers team that didn't even make the playoffs and was thought to have problems defensively. He'll seldom put his team into trouble and will accumulate less than a penalty minute per game.

In March 2012, it was revealed that his last name had been misspelled for years in North America, and he was just ''too shy'' to have it corrected, though it is now a done deal. Ironically, this card is from the 2012-13 season and still sports his 'old' last name... Also, I particularly like this quote, especially in regards to this card:

Grossman said he'd sign autographs with the double "N" and his parents back in Sweden were aware of (the situation).

But looking at the blue-sharpied signature on the sticker of this card, I'm hard-pressed to find even one 'N'...