Ryan Murray Swatch Card

It was exactly a year ago that I first featured Columbus Blue Jackets defenseman Ryan Murray and, well, the second-overall pick of the 2012 draft has yet to shake the injury bug; then again, so do the rest of the Jackets, who lost 508-man-games to injury in 2014-15.

Murray himself only played 12 games last year, and was even injured when teammate Ryan Johansen fell on him. As far as hard luck goes, that's pretty bad. It's even got GM Jarmo Kekalainen worried about his missing out on very important development years.

The irony of the ''most NHL-ready player'' from the 2012 draft being limited to 78 games since because of three injury-plagued seasons and a lockout just means we'll have to wait an extra year for him to reach his prime, in my opinion, which will probably be three or four years from now. Of course, that'll probably mean at least one ugly contract dispute with Columbus, but it's not like they're not used to it by now.

To speed things up, the Jackets made a wealth of changes this summer (and since last year's trade deadline, really) and are mostly seen as one of the most improved teams in the NHL... on paper. Notable additions include Brandon Saad and Greg Campbell, but their defense will remain their biggest question mark, at least until Murray claims the mantle as the go-to guy.

Here he is sporting the Blue Jackets' dark blue (home) uniform with a matching ''event-worn material'' swatch, from Panini's 2013-14 Totally Certified set (card #RR-RMR of the Rookie Roll Call and Dual Rookie Class sub-sets):

We'll see this year if 2014-15 was simply a fluke occurrence or the sign of a cursed franchise - and of its prized blue-chip blue-liner.

Ryan Murray Autograph Card

As I mentioned last week on this Guillaume Latendresse card, I believe Scratching The Surface is the best-looking autograph sub-set in hockey, and while the Latendresse card featured the 2010-11 version, they kept most of the design intact with just a few tweaks for this 2013-14 Crown Royale set by Panini, represented by this Ryan Murray card:

They just added silver borders (which look like dark grey on the scan) and congratulated themselves on a job well done, I guess. Sure, we don't see much of the Columbus Blue Jackets' crest or the white (away) uniform in the picture, but it appears twice on the signature/ice surface, and that's enough.

When the Jackets made Murray the second-overall pick in 2012, the consensus was that he may not be the player with the most ''upside'' (i.e. room for improvement, particularly on offense), but was the most ''NHL-ready'' of the crop; it's too bad, then, that the lock-out and an untimely injury forced him out of pretty much the entire 2012-13 campaign. He still managed to accumulate 17 points in 23 games with his WHL team - the Everett Silvertips - and resumed the captaincy he'd gained the previous year, but it was a bit of a letdown.

For the record, eight players chosen after him now have more NHL experience than he does, and one of them - Tanner Pearson, chosen 30th - even has a Stanley Cup with the Los Angeles Kings. But Murray got ''adult'' international hardware before they did, having won the bronze with Team Canada at the 2012 World Championships a month before even being drafted, becoming the second-youngest of all time to dress for Canada at the event, behind Paul Kariya.

The Jackets view him as a potential future captain, but perhaps they'll give it to Brandon Dubinsky first, until Murray has the time to age and mature. He got 4 goals and 21 points in 66 games as a rookie this past year, which bodes well for the future.