Roman Hamrlik Autographed Card

We'll have all summer to dissect the reasons of the Edmonton Oilers' loss to the Chicago Blackhawks in this season's play-in - and we certainly will. We will talk about lineups with past Stanley Cup champions, having the highest high-level talent versus "regular" high-level talent, how elite goaltending can steal a game, the pressure of being a favourite versus the liberty of being the underdog, and possibly even the salary cap and how to disperse the cap hits in a way that nourishes and nurtures the top-level talent.

But today, we'll look at one hard fact: the Oilers have the best player in the world (Connor McDavid) and the best NHL player of the 2019-20 season (Leon Draisaitl), and now have a 12.5% chance of getting their hands on this year's first-overall draft pick, Alexis Lafrenière, one of the most serious heir apparents to those titles, who will be under total salary control for the first three years of his career and then under some level of control for another five.

The Pittsburgh Penguins, who lost to the Montréal Canadiens and were eliminated on Thursday, also boast a similar level of high-end talent with Sidney Crosby and Evgeni Malkin, will also have the same chance to add Lafrenière to their roster, ensuring that two of the teams who require the least help in their rebuilds might land a franchise cornerstone out of sheer bad luck and great timing.

Not all first-overall picks are ever equal; generational players like Crosby, Malkin, McDavid and Nathan MacKinnon come around as often as those considered flops, like Alexandre Daigle (still a decent hockey player in is own right eventually), Patrik Stefan and Nail Yakupov (currently in the KHL, not yet a star player there either).

Most times, though, a team can draft an All-Star if not a franchise changer: a Taylor Hall, a Marc-André Fleury, a Mats Sundin, an Owen Nolan... or a guy like Roman Hamrlik.

Younger folks may not realize just how good Hamrlik was and might want to take a jab at me for putting him in the same category as Fleury - a guy who has a legitimate shot at entering the Hall Of Fame someday despite never winning an individual award, so let me reiterate what I've already said about The Hammer in three different posts: he was a very good, dependable defenseman.

He was a three-time All-Star (1996, 1999 and 2003), where he represented three different teams: the Tampa Bay Lightning, the Oilers and the New York Islanders. Even after that, he still managed to run the Calgary Flames' powerplay and ran second-unit PP and PKs with the Habs, before trying his hand at a Cup with the Washington Capitals as a bottom-pairing veteran in 2011-12.

He also helped the Czech Team win gold at the 1998 Olympics and played for his hometown Zlin ZPS HC on four separate occasions: as a teenager before starting his NHL career (1990-92), during Gary Bettman's first lockout (1994-95), after his contract with Edmonton expired and they didn't make the playoffs (1999-2000) and during the season-long shutdown (2004-05).

He suited up in 1395 regular-season games and managed to collect 155 goals and 483 assists for a very respectable 638 points from the blue line, plus another 41 points (3 goals, 38 assists) in 113 playoff games, usually on poor teams. His deepest run was the 2009-10 Conference Final with Jaroslav Halak's Canadiens, which was still very much an underdog.

Believe it or not, despite being a defenseman, he ranks fifth-overall in points production in his draft class, behind Hall Of Famer Sergei Gonchar (220-591-811 in 1301 games), Alexei Yashin (337-444-781 in 850 games), Cory Stillman (278-449-727 in 1025 games) and Martin Straka (257-460-717 in 954 games).

Hockey Reference estimates his point shares as over 6 - and even over 7 in 2010-11 - per season well into his mid-to-late 30s.

This is all to say that every first-overall pick is different, but most of them are very good players, and a lot of them seem to end up playing in Edmonton. Here is what Hamrlik looked like in their beautiful white (home) turn-of-the-millennium uniform, on card #96 from Upper Deck's 1998-99 Series 1 set:

I really like the foil that contours this card, in addition to the UD logo and player's name. It feels like they tried something other than maximizing picture space that didn't hinder the action. He signed it in (fading) blue sharpie during his final season in Montréal, so in 2010-11.

Roman Hamrlik Autographed Card

One player who came to the Montréal Canadiens late in his career and surpassed expectations was Roman Hamrlik, the former first-overall draft pick (Tampa Bay Lightning, 1992).

Bolts fans remember him as the best defenseman on an awful team, one that accumulated minuses at pretty much the same rate as Wayne Gretzky accumulated assists, but the truth is he was a dependable defender when slotted correctly on teams with some talent. In terms of career points, he ranked fifth of his draft year with 638 (155 goals and 483 assists in 1395 games, again, playing defense), behind Sergei Gonchar (14th overall, 220-591-811 in 1301 games), Alexei Yashin (second overall, 337-444-781 in 850 games which included a year-long holdout and a buyout), Cory Stillman (6th overall, 278-449-727 in 1025 games) and Martin Straka (19th overall, 257-460-717 in 954 games).

What's more, even apart from his career-high 65 points with the Lightning in 1995-96, he has posted 40-point seasons with the Edmonton Oilers (45, in 1999-2000) and New York Islanders (46 in 2000-01 and 41 in 2002-03), then could be counted on for 30-some points in the twilight of his career, 2005-11, with the Calgary Flames and Habs, when he became a very good second-pairing defenseman who brought sound positioning, physical play and very good hockey IQ to the line-up.

He retired following the 2012-13 lockout-shortened season, spent mostly as a scratch with the Washington Capitals and New York Rangers, after which he moved back to the South Shore of Montréal where he holds the Hammer Hockey Camp in the summer, with fellow former NHLer Petr Klima, as well as Martin Hamrlik (his older brother, a coach in the Czech Republic) and Karel Svoboda, former Hab (and Jaromir Jagr's agent) Petr Svoboda's brother, who coaches a Midget AAA team on the island during the season.

Of note, he's a huge P.K. Subban fan, and was so even when they were both on the Canadiens; he says rumours of dissent within the locker room at the time were greatly exaggerated, and that those who did have an issue with him are mostly gone (reading between the lines, Hal Gill and Josh Gorges, who were loud and vocal but did not represent the majority of players, come to mind).

Here he is whilst wearing the Isles' blue turn-of-the-millennium away uniform, on card #119 from Upper Deck's 2001-02 Series 1 set:

He signed it with a beautiful silver sharpie, adding his Habs number (44) at the end, rather than the one he wore with the Isles (4).

Roman Hamrlik Autograph Card

In honour of the Washington Capitals' win over the New York Rangers last night, I'm putting up a card from the monster pressure player who goes by the name of Roman Hamrlik.

The Hammer played for the Habs the 4 seasons prior to this one and would have liked to stay, but the team only offered him a 1-year contract and he was looking for two, which the Caps offered. Plus, the opportunity to play with world-class players such as Alex Ovechkin was probably hard to pass up...

Kind of like seeing this card for $1.99 on Ebay was too hard for me to pass up. Card # 147 from Pinnacle Brands' 1997-98 Be A Player set - yes, that brand has had more manufacturers than almost any other so far! - it is a signed insert version of the regular card, different only that it is autographed on-card in black sharpie. Not only could it be the first card from the 1997-98 season I've featured on here so far, it also sees him sporting the Tampa Bay Lightning's eye-catching (for all the wrong reasons, of course), ill-fated third jersey, decorated with a commemorative patch to boot!

Also notice the O-Pee-Chee-worthy, slightly-out-of-focus picture, and Roman's famous ''round-shaped-mouth-looking-like-he's-having-trouble-breathing'' face.

Sure, he was a healthy scratch for 15 games or so this season, but Dale Hunter has been putting him out against the opponent's powerplay throughout the playoffs, and it looks like he's thriving in the hard-working environment the coach has created of late. Good for him.

Roman Hamrlik: 4 Autographed Cards

Some of my friends, over the years, have complained about Roman Hamrlik's play, somehow expecting more out of the veteran's play but, in all honesty, in the past few years when a team leader such as Andrei Markov went down, The Hammer elevated his play, took charge and often played double the amount of minutes he should have.

When I sent Hamrlik these 4 cards on November 23rd, 2010, I was surprised to realize I didn't have any of him in the Montréal Canadiens' uniform. Seeing as he could leave as an unrestricted free agent this summer, I was hoping to have a signed memento in my local team's colours, but perhaps it was not meant to be. Ironically, in December, opening packs of different brands of 2010-11 cards, it seemed I got him in every other pack I opened. But I am happy with the cards I did send, which I received, all signed in black sharpie, on May 4th, 2011:

First, two depicting him with the Tampa Bay Lightning, who had made him the very first pick overall in the 1992 draft:

The card on the left, where the signature gets a little lost on the foil, is from Donruss' 1996-97 Leaf Limited set (card #4), while the one on the right is from Score's 1993-94 Score set (card #131). For a while, he was ranked second on the team's all-time assists list, in part due to his best year ever, in 1995-96, when he tallied 16 goals, 49 assists and 65 points. He spent six seasons with Tampa, his longest tenure in the NHL.

After leading the Edmonton Oilers' defense squad for 3 seasons at the end of the 90s, he moved on with the New York Islanders, where he would have 46- and 41-point seasons, and another 16-goal campaign.

The card on the left, seeing him sport the team's away uniform, is from Upper Deck's 2003-04 MVP set (card #268); it seems the autograph's ink didn't quite stick to the card on that one, which is odd, considering it wasn't all that glossy. The card on the right has him in the Isles' home uniform, from Topps' 2000-01 Stadium Club set (card #221).

After the Islanders, he spent the locked out 2004-05 season playing with his older brother for ZPS Zlin in the Czech league, and two seasons with the Calgary Flames before joining the Habs.