Oliver Ekman-Larsson Jersey Card

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At times, it's looked like the Vancouver Canucks' management team comprising of President Jim Rutherford and GM Patrik Allvin have been in over their heads with this team, which they took over in a different contending window from when they led the Pittsburgh Penguins to two straight Stanley Cups out of the gate, having missed out on one and now being cap-strapped with key building pieces like Thatcher Demko, Elias Pettersson, J.T. Miller, and Quinn Hughes.

Former captain Bo Horvat was sent to the New York Islanders at the last trade deadline, and rumours abounded that the likes of Brock Boeser, Connor Garland and Oliver Ekman-Larsson would eventually follow suit.

In the absence of a market for OEL's contract, however, the Canucks found themselves left with the option of terminating and buying out his contract, which brings tremendous cap relief this upcoming season and the next but will impact the team until the 2028-29 season.

I expect him to find a taker on a one-year deal around $2M to play on a team's third pair when free agency opens up on July 1st, but anything over those two thresholds would be a risk in my opinion (except for a team looking to reach the cap floor, in which case he'd probably rake in a million more as an experienced former captain for a team like the Chicago Blackhawks or Anaheim Ducks, and maybe also serve as deadline bait, as a rebuilding team would look to trade him for a mid-round (third or fourth) pick to a contender for a playoff run.

He spent his best years with the Arizona Coyotes, where he was one of very few bright spots in his eleven seasons with the franchise, twice leading them in points despite being a defenseman; he captained the team from 2018 to 2021 and represented them in the 2015 and 2018 All-Star Games. Here he is sporting their mid-2010s white (away) unifrom, on card #TS-OE from Upper Deck's 2015-16 Artifacts collection (and Treasured Swatches sub-set):

Artifacts used to be one of the two sets I most looked forward to seeing every year, with Ice.

Oliver Ekman-Larsson Autographed 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)

Oliver Ekman-Larsson will miss the Arizona Coyotes' final (and very meaningless) games as he will travel back to Sweden to attend his mother's funeral, then take time to grieve.

He'll turn 26 this summer, and the Coyotes are about to waste his prime years by remaining bottom-dwellers for at least two or three more seasons. And with the NHL now saying they won't be sending their players at next year's Olympics, the league may also be robbing him of a chance at another medal, after helping Team Sweden to silver at the 2014 Sochi Games.

He's yet to capture gold at any level, having also won silver at the 2011 World Championship, as well as bronze at the 2010 World Juniors, 2010 Worlds and 2016 World Cup.

He's literally All-World and holds the NHL record for most game-winning goals by a defenseman in a single season, with 8 - again, on the Coyotes, who barely win more than 8 games per season as a team. He's also the franchise's all-time leader in powerplay goals by a defenseman, having tied the Winnipeg Jets' 1980s reliable Fredrik Olausson last month, with two years remaining on his current contract and possibly a decade left playing the sport.

This year, there's pretty much no way the Norris Trophy doesn't go to Brent Burns. Erik Karlsson is probably still the best defenseman in the world, skill-wise, while Duncan Keith is probably the "best package".

The rest of the "current elite" class has to include Victor Hedman, P.K. Subban, Aaron Ekblad, Roman Josi, Mark Giordano, Kris Letang, Ryan McDonagh, Marc-Édouard Vlasic, John Carlson, Alex Pietrangelo and Ekman-Larsson, while the "still pretty great but on their way down" crowd includes the likes of Dustin Byfuglien, Zdeno Chara, Shea Weber, Drew Doughty, Ryan Suter, and Andrei Markov. The likes of Seth Jones and Zach Werenski are on the rise.

That is a mighty clogged list of defensemen deserving of end-of-the-year accolades, a rich crop reminiscent of the 1980s (Ray Bourque, Chris Chelios, Brian Leetch, Éric Desjardins, Larry Robinson, Al MacInnis, Denis Potvin, Mark Howe, Paul Coffey, Phil Housley, Gary Suter, Scott Stevens, Steve Duchesne, Doug Wilson, and so forth), so he may never get his hands on a Norris.

Our thoughts are with Ekman-Larsson in these hard times.

Here he is sporting the Phoenix Coyotes' former alternate uniform, on card #639 from Panini's 2010-11 Score Rookies And Traded set and Hot Rookies sub-set, which he signed in blue sharpie:

At this point, I'm tired of how pathetic the Coyotes franchise has become. I feel sorry for every talented player they have for how inept their management and ownership has been, is, and likely will remain. They are a joke, which isn't funny for players like Shane Doan, Ekman-Larsson, Max Domi, Anthony Duclair and a slew of other kids whose dreams are about to get shattered by the incompetence of those tasked with developing them.

Oliver Ekman-Larsson Jersey Card

Well, the World Juniors are under way, and what better pretext to feature one of the NHL's most underrated defensemen, Oliver Ekman-Larsson of the Arizona Coyotes. If this guy were playing in a hockey town - or anywhere on the East Coast - he'd no doubt be in the same conversations as Victor Hedman.

He's been on a 40-point pace each year since his sophomore season - again, with the Coyotes, a team who does have another big-minute defender in Keith Yandle but never really had top-notch talent up front to complete the plays started from the back end. He's often in the minuses (because the Coyotes) but still manages to get some Norris votes, finishing 7th in the race in 2012-13 (with three first-place votes) and 14th last year.

He has all the tools required to be among the elite at his position for a long time. His smooth and seemingly effortless skating hides dashing speed - not unlike Scott Niedermayer at a certain time. And his dazzling speed doesn't come on its own, as he can make plays at top speeds as well, not just blast forward and get lost in the moment.

Defensively, his style's closer to Nicklas Lidstrom's, though they're not on the same level. After all, Lidstrom's among the best of all time (definitely top-5 for me, with Doug Harvey, Bobby Orr, Ray Bourque and Larry Robinson), but Ekman-Larsson also has that near-perfect positioning and ability to just scoop the puck away from opponents at the right time.

Like Hedman, the 23-year-old already has extensive international experience, having won two silver (2011 World Championships and 2014 Olympics) and two bronze medals (2010 World Juniors and 2010 World Championships) with Team Sweden, with the swatch from this card seemingly from one of the latter two tournaments:

It's from In The Game's 2011-12 Canada Vs The World set (#IMM-18 of the International Material sub-set, the ''Black'' - or ''least rare'' variation), showing him wearing Sweden's classic blue uniform, with matching swatch.