Darnell Nurse Autographed Card

As is customary during Super Bowl weekend, the Montréal Canadiens hosted matinee games on Saturday and Sunday against the New Jersey Devils and Edmonton Oilers, respectively.

You may have heard how much of a trainwreck the Oilers are this year, with the firings of head coach Todd McLellan and GM Peter Chiarelli, Milan Lucic's year-long goal drought, the team's inability to find Connor McDavid a winger (save for second-line center Leon Draisaitl filling in at times), and the litany of bizarre-to-comical roster moves, such as, trading reigning NHL MVP Taylor Hall one-for-one instead of with a draft pick, essentially trading proven scorer Jordan Eberle for a player that was put on waivers, signing a goalie no one wanted to a three-year deal...

One of their smarter moves, though, was signing defenseman Darnell Nurse to a two-year bridge deal worth $3.2M per season; if they keep making smart moves, his next deal should be around $5.4M per before a top-dollar long-term deal is made.

Nurse is one of the team's few, good core pieces, with McDavid, Draisaitl, Ryan Nugent-Hopkins, Oscar Klefbom and Alex Chiasson, in addition to prospects Jesse Puljujarvi, Kailer Yamamoto, Caleb Jones, and Evan Bouchard. That's half the building blocks Stanley Cup contenders have.

Nurse posted two assists in today's overtime loss to the Habs, bringing him to 26 points on the year, in 52 games - the same amount he got in 80 games last year. His next goal, assist and point will be career-highs.

Here he is wearing the Sault-Ste-Marie Greyhounds' red (away) uniform, on card #28 from In The Game's 2013-14 Heroes And Prospects set:

He signed it in thin blue sharpie before the game.

Dan Cloutier Autograph Card

About a year ago, Dan Cloutier was named the Vancouver Canucks' full-time goaltending coach, replacing Roland Melanson, who moves to a development role. He had previously served as a consultant, working mainly with the team's prospects.

Cloutier's best seasons in the NHL came in Vancouver, after stints with the New York Rangers and Tampa Bay Lightning, and before following head coach Marc Crawford to the Los Angeles Kings.

Like many Québec-born goalies of the 1990s, he modeled his style on Patrick Roy's butterfly technique, albeit in a more compact manner that made him seem shorter when both, in fact, stand at 6'1". His father being a logger had him move to Sault-Ste-Marie at a young age, and it was with the Soo Greyhounds that he started out his OHL career, as can be attested by this signed insert card from Signature Rookies' 1994-95 Tet Rad series:

It's numbered 1995/7000 and signed on-card in blue sharpie.

He also played for the Guelph Storm, a team his older brother Sylvain had previously captained. Fun fact: Sylvain retired in 2014, four years after Dan.

Also of note, the Canucks hired Travis Green to coach the team this summer; he and Cloutier have a bit of a history:

Matt Murray Autographed Card

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I had plans, a New Season's Resolution of sorts; it was easy: boycott the Montréal Canadiens and the Bell Centre for at least a year and follow the other teams I like: Los Angeles Kings, Chicago Blackhawks, Calgary Flames, Edmonton Oilers, and Florida Panthers. And attend games at the Ottawa Senators' Canadian Tire Center.

Why? Because of the P.K. Subban-for-Shea Weber trade.

Well, I'll revise that to "no Habs games", because I went to the World Cup pre-tournament game tonight:

My takeaway from the game between Team Europe and the North American U-23 Team?

Jaroslav Halak still has it, and he may be the difference between a projected seventh-place finish (only Team Czech Republic is worse on paper) and, say, a fourth place if one of Russia, Canada, Team USA, Finland or Sweden slips up.

Zdeno Chara, however, cannot keep up. Marian Gaborik has a bit of a temper but can still score.

Johnny Gaudreau is no one-hit wonder; he was dominant (as much as Jonathan Drouin and Aaron Ekblad) on a team that also features Nathan MacKinnon, Connor McDavid, Jack Eichel and Auston Matthews - you know, the last four "next Sidney Crosbys".

John Gibson was in net for the kids, and he hasn't reached peak form yet, which just reinforces the impression that Matt Murray - who along with Phil Kessel may have been robbed for the Conn Smythe Trophy in June - will be the team's goalie of choice for the tournament.

And Murray happened to sign this card in blue sharpie:

It's #67 from In The Game's 2012-13 Between The Pipes set and CHL Prospects set, showing him in the Sault Ste. Marie Greyhounds' red (away) uniform.

Ironically, sitting right in front of me was the Concordia Stingers' head coach, meaning I got to talk about their new goalie, Philippe Cadorette, in person tonight.

Matt Murray Autographed Card

The Pittsburgh Penguins just sent Matt Murray back down to the AHL now that Marc-André Fleury is back from his concussion, but the 21-year-old made quite an impression, going 2-1-0 with a 1.72 GAA and .938 save percentage in 4 games with the Pens.

As a matter of fact, since turning pro at the tail end of the 2013-14 season, he has never posted a GAA over 2.00 nor a save percentage lower than .920. Last season alone, his numbers were 1.58 and .941 with the Wilkes-Barre/Scranton Penguins, with a 25-10-1 record in 40 games, which included the longest shutout streak in AHL history, ahead of Barry Brust and Hall Of Famer Johnny Bower, on route to being named the best goalie in the league.

The Pens' plan for the season was to let him accumulate reps in the minors instead of riding the pine in the NHL - that job going to Jeff Zatkoff. Fleury's injury changed that. His stellar play might have the Penguins facing difficult decisions a couple of years before they had planned to as to how their goaltending duties will be handled in the near future.

Here is a card he signed in back sharpie for my brother last season after a game in which he shut out the St. John's IceCaps:

It's card #83 from In The Game's 2012-13 Heroes And Prospects set, showing him wearing the Sault Ste. Marie Greyhounds' black (alternate) uniform.

He added his jersey number to his signature (30), which he has worn at every level.

Joe Thornton Autograph Card

After Jarome Iginla last week, here's another card inspired from a post inspired by The Iron Lung's attempt at getting a hard-signed autograph card from every player in the NHL's 1000-point club. This time around, former captain of the Boston Bruins (and current one of the San Jose Sharks), Joe Thornton.

I'm not a huge fan of Big Joe, but I do enjoy watching him fail at another Stanley Cup run each year, although he's making the suspense last longer of late, which isn't good for my heart pressure. I started having these feelings for Thornton when his Bruins would play my hometown Montréal Canadiens and find embarrassing ways to finish first in the division yet fall to the Habs come playoff time.

I'll give him one thing, though: he's the only player ever to have won the Art Ross trophy as points leader in the year when he was traded. At the time I was hoping this wouldn't become a trend, and I'm glad to see it didn't; I'm a purist that way, the type who didn't like when players got free agency after at most 7 seasons (then again, there are more destinations now that I wouldn't last a month in than there was when I played myself).

This card's a little weird, I'll give you that much; his last name in capitals letters, the lack of a design, and the bizarre absence of a logo make the whole thing an oddity, but that's because its manufacturer, The Score Board, didn't have a license to produce official cards, even in this uniform, Big Joe's junior team, the Sault-Ste-Marie Greyhounds. Here's the logo that was on his chest before it was airbrushed out:

Take a good, long look at that logo, which the team's fans called ''The Ugly Dog'', as it was used only for four seasons before the team reverted back to its original jersey and logo

The card is an insert, signed in blue sharpie, from the 1997-98 The Score Board collection. The way TSB worked, essentially, was they would purchase packs of cards like you and I, from all the other manufacturers, sell the valuable cards to hobby shops and repackage the rest in new packs combining those of all brands (but inevitably more of those they got for cheaper, like Pro Set or Parkhurst), and adding signed inserts of prospects from Canadian junior leagues and American colleges to 'up' the value of their packs.

They also did end up getting licenses, mostly for NFL games and cards for movies, notably Star Trek, Star Wars, The Wizard Of Oz, and estate sets for the likes of Elvis Presley.

For more information, a pretty long article about them seemingly written by someone from the company posing as an objective onlooker can be found here.