Duncan Siemens Jersey Card

Duncan Siemens is a 24-year-old stay-at-home, 6'3", 210-pound defenseman who is probably on the verge of breaking out and earning a regular spot on the Colorado Avalanche, or at least it would seem so since the team extended him a qualifying offer last summer. He was their second first-round pick (11th overall) in 2011, after they chose Gabriel Landeskog with the second-overall selection.

Back in Juniors, starring with the WHL's Saskatoon Blades, Siemerns was viewed as a smooth skater with a good first pass and a punishing mean streak - which remains true. That being said, he didn't make Patrick Roy's Avs squad because his stick-handling was problematic (and the team had enough trouble coming out of its own zone, Roy didn't want to risk it further by having one guy be susceptible to turnovers if opponents put enough pressure on him), and while he looks good skating for a big guy, making big strides, he's not the fastest skater.

I do feel that he can still develop into a sort of Marc Methot-type, which is very good in and of itself, although it lacks justification for having been selected ahead of the likes of Sven Baertschi (13th), Oscar Klefbom (19th), John Gibson (39th), Brandon Saad (43rd), Markus Granlund (45th), Xavier Ouellet (48th), Nikita Kucherov (58th), Vincent Trocheck (64th), and Jean-Gabriel Pageau (96th).

Here he is wearing the WHL's All-Star uniform on card #SSM-38 from In The Game's 2012-13 Heroes And Prospects set and Game-Used Jersey sub-set:

It features a huge red game-worn jersey swatch from his uniform in the 2012 Subway Super Series. It's the "Black" version of the card.

Ian Gordon Autograph Card

Never drafted in the NHL, Ian Gordon still managed to make his way through the ''prospects'' set 1995-96 Draft Day (card #13) by Signature Rookies. It is signed in thin blue sharpie, and numbered 330/4500 and sees him wearing the Saskatoon Blades' white (home) jersey.

After his stint in juniors, first with the Swift Current Broncos, then the Blades, Gordon went on to play parts of two seasons with the AHL's Saint John Flames, then three-and-a-half years in the IHL with three different teams, before moving onto the German League. Not only has he won a league championship with the Frankfurt Lions, he's actually still playing this season, having appeared in 10 games so far with the Ingolstadt ERC, with former NHL prospect Tyler Bouck, going 6-4-0 with a 2.39 GAA, .911 save % and one shutout.

Chad Allan Autograph Card

For the second straight day, here's a twin post with one of (ultimate hockey card blogger) Sal's, ''NHL bust'' Chad Allan, seen here in the 1990s Saskatoon Blades uniform (somewhat loosely based on the St. Louis Blues' mid-nineties foray into integrating the colour red to the blue-and-yellow); the Blades have kept some of the same colours throughout the years, but the yellow is now relegated to ''third jersey'' status and looks more like the mid-2000s Buffalo Sabres' jerseys than the Blues'...

Nowadays, the Blades use mostly all-blue uniforms:

Picture taken from the Blades' website

But back to Chad Allan, a third-round pick of the Vancouver Canucks (65th overall) in 1994 (ahead of Sheldon Souray, Chris Drury, Milan Hejduk, Marty Turco, Daniel Alfredsson, Bryce Salvador, enforcer/comedian André Roy, Tim Thomas, Evgeni Nabokov, Tomas Vokoun, Steve Sullivan, Richard Zednik, Sergei Berezin, Tomas Holmstrom, Dick Tarnstrom, and Kim Johnsson - most of whom are either still active or former All Stars).

A decent-sized defensive defenseman, Allan played 5 seasons with the Blades, followed by 5 seasons in the AHL (four with the Syracuse Crunch and one with the St. John's Maple Leafs), and then 8 more in Europe; he also played a half season split between Europe and the UHL (formerly the IHL), for the Kalamazoo Wings.

This card was also from Signature Rookies' 1995-96 Draft 96 set (card #1!!!), and is numbered 1314/4500. Notice how the logo was airbrushed out and instead replaced with a generic rendering of the city's name, because SR didn't have the rights to reproduce CHL/WHL logos... I like how it was signed in (very) thin blue sharpie.