Jeff Hackett: Two Autographed Cards

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Montréal Canadiens head coach Claude Julien and associate coach Kirk Muller were fired earlier today, and most of the chatter online has been about focusing blame on goalie Carey Price, with reason. However, a loud minority of the voices were sarcastically asking for the return of another wearer of jersey #31, Jeff Hackett, to replace him. My impression is that these are kids who didn't live through the so-called "Hackett era", because he was by far the best and most important player on that team, a team which, at the time, was seen as one of the worst in Habs history, although the current iteration has to contend for that title as well, or at least qualify as most underachieving.

First things first, the firing: had Julien lost the room? Probably. The players were still giving their effort, but in a roundabout way, kind of like when some players with low production still have a high Corsi score by putting up low-probability shots on the opposing net instead of making quality plays: there were hard-fought battles but too many penalties; there were defensive lapses in the exact areas that make Julien cringe; and the $10.5M goalie's play had his teammates go from "we know we can cheat to try to create scoring chances because we know we have the best goalie in the world out there" in the first ten games of the season to "we really have to help our goalie out more, we can't be caught cheating and giving away two-on-ones and three-on-twos like that"; and said goalie has reverted back to his old self of blaming teammates instead of himself for the goals that go in - better yet, he thinks he's playing well. Julien's Habs have ranked 24th on the powerplay and 26th on the penalty kill since 2016. The Canadiens never actually made the playoffs in any full season of Julien coaching in his second stint in Montréal, and only qualified as the last club in the 24-team tournament last year.

Muller likely wasn't kept around for one or all of the following reasons: he went 2-3 in last year's postseason when Julien suffered a heart attack; he doesn't speak French fluently and many fans would have clamoured to have him be named head coach while GM Marc Bergevin probably has other candidates in mind; he was very close to Julien and may follow him in his/their next job, perhaps on the West Coast.

If interim head coach Dominique Ducharme wins a playoff round, expect him to sign a five-year deal; if the team fails to even qualify for the post-season, expect the usual suspects (Patrick Roy, Guy Boucher, Marc Crawford, Pascal Vincent, Benoit Groulx and Bob Hartley) to get interviews. It's anyone's guess what happens should the team lose in the first round.

Regarding Price himself, he's been way below average since the beginning of Julien's reign and has let in upwards of 25 more goals than expected in those three and a half years, which isn't ideal for the highest-paid netminder in the NHL. The window to trade him ends next Fall.

As for Hackett, he was acquired by the Canadiens from the Chicago Blackhawks with Eric Weinrich and Alain Nasreddine for Jocelyn Thibault, Dave Manson and Brad Brown. The trade gave the Hawks an All-Star goalie who may not have developped into one in Montréal, and the Habs finally got to cleanse their palate of the Roy debacle, whose shoes Thibault had never been able to fill. Hackett was so good that he won the Molson Cup as team MVP in both seasons where he was the starter, until injuries started to derail his career, allowing for José Theodore to take over slide into the starter's job. With a .914 save percentage both years (in a league where Dominik Hasek's .919 was tops) and goals-against averages of 2.25 and 2.40, it was no surprise that Hackett got Vezina Trophy votes; it was also not surprising that he didn't make it as a finalist due to the team being so far out of playoff contention.

Here are two cards that depict his playing style very well, as a former stand-up goalie who leaned into the butterfly technique but kept his "pouncing" reflexes:

On the left is card #88 from Upper Deck's 1999-2000 Wayne Gretzky collection and Leader sub-set, showing him ready to stop a puck headed for his stomach; on the right is card #28 from Topps' 2000-01 Premier Plus set, with a flat butterfly pad and the ability to push the rebound to the corner in a far less dangerous zone for his team, giving his defensemen a chance to battle for and regain control of the puck - a move I put high value in as a goaltending coach.

Both show him wearing the Habs' iconic red jersey and were signed in blue sharpie after his departue from Montréal.

I just felt that the recent discourse had taken a lot of credit away from him and the fact that he was very good, gave his honest best effort, and even acknowledged via his helmet that he knew he was getting into a hockey hotbed that Quebecers are thrown in as youth and get more rabid about with each passing year - particularly those years without Stanely Cups, even more so in years without a playoff berth. Heck, among the sixteen who have worn the number for the Canadiens, he's "my" #31, ahead of Price (2008-21), John Kordic (1986-89), Mark Napier (1979-84), Tom Chorske (1990-91) and Michel "Bunny" Larocque (1974).

Flyers Preview: Bob Froese Autographed Card

This will likely be the preface to all of this year's Season Preview posts: 2020 is a different beast and requires adaptability; in my case, it means the joint posts with my "main/personal" blog will not be in the "player here/analysis there" format but rather the entire scope of the analysis will take place here and the player will have some sort of direct connection to what's written. Caveats: at this point, despite the season being set to start in Mid-January, several impact players haven't found a team yet and quite a few teams are currently above the salary cap, which means there is much maneuvering left to do.

After slowly building themselves up to get to this point, the Philadelphia Flyers have finally reached "Stanley Cup contender" status and merely require tweaks for a run each season; technically, this summer, they replaced second-pair defenseman Matt Niskanen - who retired - with Erik Gustafsson, and they could make a surprise run at Zdeno Chara who would fit right in going from the Big Bad Bruins to the Broad Street Bullies, but apart from that they only lost depth players (Nate Thompson, Tyler Pitlick and Derek Grant) who can be replaced at the trade deadline.

And while I feel that the team has technically taken steps back in each of the off-seasons since GM Ron Hextall - who built this impressive lineup from the ground up save for second-line center Kevin Hayes - was axed and replaced with Chuck Fletcher, it remains a team that's so deep it can afford to lose a piece per year and still remain in the mix.

What makes their odds look good:
Captain Claude Giroux is no longer the got-go buy for offense: that's now Sean Couturier and Travis Konecny's jobs, and Giroux can "coast" on 0.75 points per game without the pressure of facing the opposition's top players all the time, although he often joins the two young stars when he's not sharing the ice with his old compadre Jakub Voracek. James Van Riemsdyk is still good for 25-30 prorated goals (he had 21 in 66 games last year and some fans were still dissatisfied!), Scott Laughton looks solid in the middle of the lineup, and budding youngs stars Joel Farabee, Oskar Lindblom, Morgan Frost and Cameron York will also fight for some serious ice time, so even if Nolan Patrick isn't ready to come back from his concussion issues, it won't necessarily harm the team.

The defense is solid with the likes of Ivan Provorov, Travis Sanheim and Philippe Myers, so much so that once-highly-touted prospects like Samuel Morin and Robert Hagg may never get a true shot at making the regular roster.

Question marks:
None, really. If Fletcher can stop subtracting talent and adding to the salary cap, this team will be a yearly tweak from contending for the next decade. Acquiring Justin Braun on defense looks like a smart move right now, we'll just have to see how the deal looks long-term.

Outlook:
The Washington Capitals have been winning their division in the regular season for over a decade at this point, and they now have serious competition. Look for the two teams to exchange the lead all season long.

Prediction:
First in the Metropolitan/East Division.

Star goalie Carter Hart is not immune to suffering a setback in his progression, but not having the Philly crowd around will certainly help ease a lot of the pressure. After all, playing net in the City of Brotherly Love is a near-guarantee to fail; apart from Bernie Parent who retired due to injury and Pelle Lindbergh who died in a car crash, even Vezina and Conn Smythe winners and nominees have been run out of town, and that includes Hextall, but also Sean Burke, Sergei Bobrovsky and Ilya Bryzgalov.

One goalie who lost his job to both Lindbergh and Hextall yet still won the Jennings, was a Second Team All-Star and a Vezina runner-up in-between is Bob Froese, but a lack of patience with his playoff perfromances saw him get traded to the New York Rangers after Hextall came along. He was part of a formidable tandem with John Vanbiesbrouck until he retired to help groom their successor, Mike Richter, as the team's goaltending coach.

After a short stint in player development for the New York Islanders in the mid-1990s, he retired from the game permanently to become an ordained minister, a position he held until last year.

This is what he looked like wearing the Flyers' orange (away) uniform in the 1980s:

It's a picture I've been looking at regularly for the past 35 years, although I had the O-Pee-Chee version as a child and this is card #55 from Topps' 1986-87 Topps collection. I bought it on Ebay for $5. It seems every time I lay my eyes on the card, I see new details emerge, like the thin orange stripe on the sleeve, I'm not sure I had noticed it before today. What weird patterns everywhere on this jersey from my youth, I love it!

Leafs Preview: Wendel Clark Autographed Card

This will likely be the preface to all of this year's Season Preview posts: 2020 is a different beast and requires adaptability; in my case, it means the joint posts with my "main/personal" blog will not be in the "player here/analysis there" format but rather the entire scope of the analysis will take place here and the player will have some sort of direct connection to what's written. Two more caveats: at this point, the NHL has not even confirmed the division make-ups yet despite the season being set to start a month from now, and several impact players such as 25-to-30-goal scorer Mike Hoffman and 20-goal journeyman forward Anthony Duclair, among others, haven't found a team yet. And quite a few teams are currently above the salary cap, which means there is much maneuvering left to do.

That being said, let's start with the one division we're pretty sure is going to happen if only because of the border situation, the Canadian Division, and the Toronto Maple Leafs.

After three straight first-round eliminations at the hands of the Boston Bruins, the Leafs technically missed the playoffs altogether in 2019-20 after being ousted in the Return To Play by the Columbus Blue Jackets, despite a powerhouse offense that features Auston Matthews - who was on pace for 50 goals and 100 points - Mitch Marner, John Tavares, Kasperi Kapanen and Andreas Johnsson but no defense to speak of. Gone are Kapanen and Johnsson, as well as Kyle Clifford, Cody Ceci, Frédérik Gauthier, Kevin Gravel and Tyson Barrie, replaced by grizzled veterans Joe Thornton (off a decent warm-up in the Swiss League), Wayne Simmonds, T.J. Brodie, Stanley Cup winner Zach Bogosian, Aaron Dell and former star U.S. College player Jimmy Vesey.

What makes their odds look good:
All that offensive firepower (minus the 40 goals provided by Johnsson and Kapanen) is still there and Morgan Rielly won't have to compete for ice time with Barrie and will be able to go back to accumulating points from the blue line.

Question marks:
Brodie will cover Rielly's back, but he is not a contributor like Barrie. Thornton, Simmonds and Bogosian are but shadows of their former selves, although the first two might get at least a temporary boost from playing in their hometowns. Goaltender Frederik Andersen no longer has the Toronto media hype machine to overrate, inflate and rate as great his performances and we can see him for what he is: a fine starter, but no Vezina contender.

Outlook:
As currently constructed, the Leafs' back end and depth is not made to withstand a condensed schedule, what with all those veterans in the middle of the lineup (Thornton, Simmonds, Jason Spezza, Jake Muzzin, Bogosian) and sudden drop-off in productivity up-front. Sure, there is something to be said about leadership, experience and character, but there's a reason why it's always the veteran who is two days from retirement who dies in all those cop movies and never the brash rookie: he just can't keep up and the gam has gotten past him. I also have a thing about Thornton and Tavares never winning a Cup and rooting for more of the same forever.

Prediction:
Fifth in the Canadian/North Division, a point shy of a playoff spot.

Which brings me to Wendel Clark, the only good forward not named Borje Salming the team had in the 1980s, who represents the team extremely well. Again, he was very good, a two-time All-Star Game participant (in his prime in 1986 and as a veteran prior to retirement in 1999), but no Hall Of Famer. Ask any Leaf fan and they'll tell you he was a multiple 50-goal scorer, when he in fact surpassed 40 only once (46, in 64 games, in 1993-94), although he did reach 30 four more times, three of them with Toronto. He collected over 200 penalty minutes twice and nearly did so a third time, and was a "minus" player for most of his career, doing worse than -20 four times, and worse than -10 three more.

Like Andersen, Tavares, Thornton, Rielly and nearly every player who dons the blue Maple Leaf jersey, Leaf fans overrate him and expect more than what he can provide - and whether he eventually does or not does not seem to matter.

He did captain the team from 1991 until 1994, as attested by card #325 from Topps' 1992-93 Topps set:

He signed it in black sharpie at a card show nearly a decade ago, between the time the Leafs honored his number (2008) and retired it (2016).

Luc Robitaille: Two Autographed Cards

There was a reason why Luc Robitaille was selected in the ninth round, 171st overall, in 1984: scouts from all NHL teams considered him too slow to keep up with the 1980s pro game, despite having posted more than a point-per-game average in his rookie year in Juniors with the LHJMQ's Hull Olympiques; he followed that with a 55-goal, 148-point season in 64 games in 1984-85 and with 68 goals and 191 points in 63 games the following season, convincing the Los Angeles Kings to provide him with a real shot at making the team, which he did.

His 84-point rookie season earned him the Calder Trophy in 1986-87 - the first year I followed hockey full-time - and his 63-goal season in 1992-93 was the NHL record for a very long time, until Alex Ovechkin obliterated it in 2007.

Robitaille retired after the 2005-06 season, in his third stint with the Kings, as the highest-scoring left winger of all time (beaten earlier this season by Ovechkin), Los Angeles' franchise record holder for goals (577), fourth behind Marcel Dionne, Wayne Gretzky and Dave Taylor on the team's all0time assists leaders list( 726), and second to Taylor in career points with the franchise (1154).

He's the quintessential King, which is why he's currently the team's President.

He was interviewed by NBC Sports recently and had an interesting take on Ovechkin's path to beating Gretzky's all-time goals record:

It’s hard to figure out someone that would do it. I’m going to enjoy this ride because it’s special. It’s very special and this is something that’s really good for our game. I’m rooting for him that he does it because it’s going to be absolutely incredible.

Whether he truly wants him to break Gretzky's record "for the good of the game" or because he doesn't want to be alone among former 1990s Kings captains to get surpassed by Alexander The Great remains to be seen; one thing's for certain: it truly is entertaining to keep track of.

Here he is wearing the Kings' 1990s white (home) uniform on card #90 from Topps' 1992-93 Premier set and First Team All-Star sub-set:

And here he is wearing the counterpart black (away) uniform, on card #98 from Upper Deck's 1998-99 UD Choice set:

Those were, in my opinion, the very best Kings uniforms ever. I miss them dearly.

In-between stints in L.A., Robitaille also played for the Pittsburgh Penguins, New York Rangers, and Detroit Red Wings - with whom he won the 2001-02 Stanley Cup - as well as Team Canada at the 1986 World Juniors (silver), 1991 Canada Cup (won), and 1994 World Championships (gold medal).

Dean Evason Autographed Card

Bill Guerin, GM of the Minnesota Wild, has made a coaching change with 25 games remaining and the team 3 points out of a playoff Wild Card spot, replacing head coach Bruce Boudreau with Dean Evason on an interim basis until the end of the season.

Boudreau was in the final year of a four-season deal and the fact that he hadn't received an extension was a telling sign that he wasn't going to be Guerin's man going forward. I'm not certain Evason will be either as there are plenty of available other options and he was former GM Paul Fenton's backup plan, but he'll get to interview for the position after the season.

Evason had gotten to know Fenton while both were part of the Nashville Predators organization - Fenton as assistant-GM, Evason as their AHL affiliate Milwaukee Admirals' head coach - but he had also been a seven-year assistant coach with the Washington Capitals and had been bench boss in the WHL for the Kamloops Blazers, Vancouver Giants and Calgary Hitmen.

As a player, he started and finished his NHL career wearing red (he was drafted 89th overall by the Caps in 1982 and suited up for 67 games with the Calgary Flames in 1995-96), but I remember him mostly wearing green, via his time with the Dallas Stars (1993-95), sure, but even more so with the Hartford Whalers (1985-91).

During his 434 games in Connecticut, he scored 87 goals with 148 assists for 235 points and a -29 rating - the team didn't make the playoffs every year - while playing on the third line.

All of this is still vividly clear in my mind, as is the fact that I liked him because his was one of the first O-Pee-Chee cards I landed out of a pack as a child. What I was surprised to find out was how aggressive the 5'10", 175-pound centre was, with four seasons above the 100-PIM mark and another one at 99, with a high of 170 in 75 games in his final season as a Whaler in 1990-91 (and 29 more in 4 playoff games that year).

This is why I'm choosing to feature him wearing #12 in the Hartford's classic green (away) uniform, which is also perfect for inclusion in my Whalers Numbers Project:

That's card #325 from Topps' flagship 1991-92 Topps set. He signed it in black sharpie last season. I had forgotten the design on this card until today, that his helmet and left elbow go over lines into the white border on one side while the stick doesn't on the other. Topps worked on these more seriously than I remembered.

Jay Bouwmeester Jersey Card

Tonight's game between the St. Louis Blues and Anaheim Ducks was postponed after Jay Bouwmeester collapsed on the bench, 12:10 into the game's first period with the score even at 1. It is considered a "cardiac episode".

Here he is from early in his career on card #FP-JB from Topps' 2003-04 Traded & Rookies set and Future Phenoms sub-set:

It shows him wearing the Florida Panthers' original white (home) uniform, with a matching game-worn jersey swatch from his rookie season.

He became the 29th member of the Triple Gold club last June when he added the Stanley Cup to a resume that already included an Olympic gold medal (2014) and World Championship gold (2003 and 2004).

He also holds two World Cup titles (2004 and 2016), World Championship silver (2008) and World Juniors silver (2002) and bronze (2000 and 2001) medals with Team Canada.

Tony Hrkac: Two Autographed Cards

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The last time I featured two autographed Tony Hrkac cards, I purposely skimmed through his time with the Mighty Ducks of Anaheim because I knew I had this post as a back-up.

His 140 games with Anaheim was the third-most he spent with any one organization, after the 201 with the St. Louis Blues and 160 with the Atlanta Thrashers. His 38 points with the Mighty Ducks in 2000-01 at age 34 is his fifth-highest total in the NHL, coming in the heart of the Dead Puck Era and his even (+0) plus/minus rating was tied for second-best on the team, with only Antti Aalto falling into the positives at +1, in only 12 games, mind you. The team's stars were all in deep minuses: Paul Kariya (67 points, -9), Teemu Selanne (59 points, -8), Oleg Tverdovsky (53 points, -11), Marty McInnis (42 points, -21) and Matt Cullen (40 points, -23) all brought forth a negative differential, making life difficult on goalies Guy Hebert (41 games, 12-23-4, 2 shutouts, 3.12 GAA and .897 save percentage) and Jean-Sébastien Giguère (34 games, 11-17-5, 4 shutouts, 2.57 GAA and .911 save percentage).

Card #5 from Pacific's  2001-02 Pacific series encapsulates his time in California very well:

The purple (technically "eggplant") and jade uniform was their main away gear from the team's inception in 1993 until 2006, when Disney sold the team and it changed its look and took the "Mighty" out of its name to not interfere with Disney's copyrights from the kids' film franchise, with the team opting to modify its brand and look at the same time.

However, I mostly tend to remember Hrkac as a member of the Blues and Québec Nordiques, as the early 90s were when I followed the sport and the NHL the most religiously, and I also have him sporting the Nords' beautiful blue (away) uniform from the late 80s/early 90s, before they started incorporating red on the contours of the numbers:

That's card #172 from Topps' 1990-91 Bowman set, which enables me to enter Hrkac as #28 in my Nordiques Numbers Project. You might recall he's also there as #40, and he is a rare player who went from wearing a "regular" (read: below #35) number in 1989-90 to a "high number" (40 and up) in 1990-91; back in the day, it was customary for goalies to wear #1, #20, #29, or a number between 30 and 35, while tough guys and goons were given available numbers between 30 and 39 and other skaters typically had lower numbers - except for stars, who could get "the doubles" (11, 22, 44, 55, 66, 77, 88 and 99). The numbers above 40 were typically reserved for rookies who had yet to "earn" their lower number.

Hrkac signed these in blue sharpie when he came out of retirement at age 42, from 2008 to 2010, with the Houston Aeros of the AHL. His 2008-09 playoff run was particularly impressive, as he posted 14 points in 19 games in a deep postseason run.

He's been a pro scout with the Tampa Bay Lightning since 2015, who have acquired the likes of Anton Stralman, Michaël Bournival, Gabriel Dumont, Peter Budaj, Louis Domingue, Dan Girardi, Ryan McDonagh, Mikhail Sergachev, Eddie Pasquale, Cameron Gaunce, Danick Martel, J.T. Miller, Curtis McElhinney, Jan Rutta, Luke Schenn, Kevin Shattenkirk and Pat Maroon via other means than drafting during his tenure, so either he is passionate about my blog or he travels from Montréal to New York a lot.

Gordie Roberts: Two Autographed Cards

I can't think of a player who better exemplified the last Stanley Cup Final than Gordie Roberts, a bruising defenseman who collected 100-PIM seasons like I do sports cards and played for both the St. Louis Blues and Boston Bruins - the two teams who faced off in the classic this summer.

Both teams made the opposition pay with their physical play then knocked them out with opportune, sometimes lucky scoring and the Cup winner was a team no one expected.

Robert won the Cup twice... in his only two seasons with the Pittsburgh Penguins. Not many people remember he was on those teams - maybe that's because he spent 63 minutes in 24 playoff games in the penalty box in 1990-91 and 33 more in 19 games in 1991-92. Most people remember the hard-hitting Grant Jennings and Ulf Samuelsson and the offensive contributions of Paul Coffey and Larry Murphy, or even the steady poise of Paul Stanton. Roberts? Not so much.

A Michigan native, he was named after the legendary Gordie Howe, with whom he got to play for three of the five seasons Roberts was in the New England Whalers/Hartford Whalers organization. After that came eight solid seasons with the Minnesota North Stars - including a trip to the 1980-81 Cup Final and a 53-point outing in 1983-84, 11 games with the Philadelphia Flyers to close out the 1987-88 season, three full seasons with the Blues, the two years in Pittsburgh, two injury-filled seasons in Boston, and two final years of pro hockey in a strong IHL - with the Chicago Wolves in 1994-95 and the Minnesota Moose in 1995-96.

Here he is wearing the Blues' 80s blue (away) uniform, on card #256 from O-Pee-Chee's 1990-91 O-Pee-Chee set:

And here he is rocking the Bruins' white (home) uniform from my youth, on card #41 from Topps' 1993-94 Stadium Club collection:

Those were nice full-bleed cards with no border, proudly advertising using Kodak photography development technology.

The 1977 and 1978 WHA All-Star signed both cards in blue sharpie while a scout with the Montréal Canadiens, which would date this around 2008-10, around the team's centennial.

Jimmy Carson Autographed Card

You may recall his name from two nights ago: Jimmy Carson is the second-youngest player in NHL history to reach the 100 career goals mark, and the American player to do it the fastest. Carson already showed he was special in Juniors, playing for the LHJMQ's Verdun Junior Canadiens: in 1984-85, as a rookie, he was second in team scoring with 44 goals, 72 assists and 116 points in 68 games, second only to Claude Lemieux, and the following season he led the team with 70 goals, 83 assists and 153 points in 69 games, with second-place Everett Sanipass pretty far behind at 94 - although Sanipass' 320 penalty minutes would catch the eye of the Chicago Blackhawks.

Carson was selected second-overall at the 1986 draft, behind Joe Murphy, by the Los Angeles Kings and would finish seventh in his draft class in career points with 561, behind Vincent Damphousse (1205 points, 6th overall), Brian Leetch (1028 points, 9th overall), Scott Young (756 points, 11th overall), Craig Janney (751 points, 13th overall), Teppo Numminen (637 points from the blue line, 29th overall), and Adam Graves (616 points, 29th overall).

He finished third in Calder Trophy voting in 1986-87 behind Kings teammate Luc Robitaille, who was two years his senior and barely had a better offensive output, but had way worse defensive statistics (+/-):

Robitaille: 45 goals, 39 assists, 84 points, -19 in 79 games
Carson: 37 goals, 42 assists, 79 points, -5 in 80 games

Finishing second was Ron Hextall, winner of the Vezina and Conn Smythe that year.

Carson followed that up with a 55-goal, 52-assist, 107-point season in 1987-88, only to be traded to the Edmonton Oilers during he off-season with Martin Gélinas, round 1 pick in the 1989 draft (Jason Miller), round 1 pick in the 1991 draft (Martin Rucinsky), round 1 pick in the 1993 draft (Nick Stajduhar) and cash ($10M in 1988 dollars) to Edmonton Oilers for Wayne Gretzky, Mike Krushelnyski and Marty McSorley.

He had 49 goals, 51 assists and 100 points in his first season in Edmonton, but 4 games into the 1989-90 season (in which he had 3 points), after making a trade request, he was sent to his hometown Detroit Red Wings with Kevin McClelland and a 1991 fifth-rounder for Graves, Murphy, Petr Klima and Jeff Sharples, the kind of one-sided trade that gives a team - in this instance, the Oilers - a Stanley Cup. It is said that he couldn't handle the pressure of having been traded for Gretzky, but he told me it was more that he resented being the face of Gretzky's departure from Canada - a much different pressure than just hockey-related.

Playing second fiddle to Steve Yzerman, Sergei Fedorov and Gerard Gallant, Carson didn't get much ice time and his statistics dipped, often falling close to the point-per-game average, but always below it. He was eventually sent back to L.A. (for Paul Coffey, no less!), where injuries and declining speed took their toll, eventually passing through the Vancouver Canucks and Hartford Whalers organizations, playing one year in Switzerland, and playing for him hometown IHL Detroit Vipers for parts of two seasons before retiring for good and entering the "normal, 9-to-5" workplace that is the world of financial planning.

Here he is wearing the Wings' red (then-away) uniform on card #398 from Topps' 1992-93 Topps set, with the NHL's 75 Anniversary patch on the chest:

He signed it in blue sharpie at a card show in Windsor in 2010 or 2011.

Danny Gare Autographed Card

Earlier this week, the Buffalo Sabres continued their 50th anniversary celebrations by having a "Founders Night", commemorating the Knox brothers being awarded a new franchise (along with the Vancouver Canucks, two markets that had been passed over in the 1967 expansion).

Sure, that makes the Sabres and Canucks tied for second-longest Stanley Cup drought behind the Toronto Maple Leafs, but the fans there have almost never wavered their support despite having witnessed just two Cup Finals in their history (1975 and 1999), and not having made the playoffs since 2011 - the longest active sequence without postseason play.

That wasn't the case in the 1970s, as the "French Connection" - one of the era's best NHL line's, starring Gilbert Perreault, Richard Martin and René Robert - ensured Buffalo at least made the playoffs practically every season (save for 1973-74). It was adding a secondary All-Star forward like Danny Gare, however, that proved to be the spark that was needed to bring the Sabres to the final round of play.

A short and strong player, Gare willed himself to two 50-goal seasons in the era of the Broad Street Bullies (1974 and 1975 Stanley Cup champions) and Big Bad Bruins - and the third Montréal Canadiens dynasty, of course. It was his character that had his named the Sabres' captain (1977-81) ahead of Perreault (81-85), who may still today be the face of the franchise's first 50 years.

If I were to make an All-Sabres Team, my first unit would be:

Forwards: Perreault, Martin, Robert
Defence: Phil Housley and Lindy Ruff
Goalie: Dominik Hasek
Coach: Scotty Bowman

My second unit would likely be:

Forwards: Pat Lafontaine, Alexander Mogilny, Gare
Defence: Mike Ramsey and Larry Playfair
Goalie: Ryan Miller, slightly ahead of Roger Crozier
Coach: George "Punch" Imlach

Granted, the defence isn't as strong as that of other similar lists for other teams, but the offence, goaltending and coaching is nothing to sneeze at - you might even say "world-class".

Which brings me to card #88 from Topps' 1980-81 Topps set, showing Gare wearing the Sabres' classic blue (away) uniform with the captain's "C" prominent on his chest:

The cards, which he signed in blue sharpie at a card convention in a Toronto suburb nearly 10 years ago, reflects that he had been named as an end-of-season All-Star (2nd Team All-Star). He has also participated in two All-Star Games and played for Team Canada at the 1976 and 1981 Canada Cups (winning in his first attempt, losing to the Soviet Union the second time around).

Craig Wolanin: Three Autographed Cards

NHL scouts were adamant: "Craig Wolanin is a blue chip prospect. He may need a bit more time than a Craig Simpson (2nd pick of the 1985 draft) or a Wendel Clark (1st overall) but he'll be worth the wait." The thought at the time was that the 6'3", 215-pound defenseman would carve out a career that at worst would look like Dave Manson's (11th in the same draft) and at best be a positionally-strong, elite hard-hitting defenseman who makes the best use of a relatively limited offensive skill-set, like Scott Stevens (5th overall pick of the 1982 draft).

Ironically, the 1985 draft produced a single 1000-point producer, second-rounder (27th overall) Joe Nieuwendyk, and four defensemen who hit the 1000-game mark (Manson, 14th pick Calle Johansson, 32nd pick Eric Weinrich and 81st pick Fredrik Olausson).

Obviously, Wolanin was none of those. He showed glimpses of a Stevens-like path in his third season, when he scored six goals with 25 assists for 31 points - the only time he would hit that mark - and a whopping 170 penalty minutes, 61 more than his second-highest total, the 109 from his previous season, and more than double his usual career fare, which usually hovered around the 80-mark.

Part of the deal that sent Hall Of Famer Peter Stastny from the Québec Nordiques to the New Jersey Devils, Wolanin was a second-unit, 15-point defenseman in his time in Québec and won the Stanley Cup when the franchise became the Colorado Avalanche for the 1995-96 season, although he was scratched for the final 13 games of the playoffs after losing a puck that led to a goal against.

He was then sent to the Tampa Bay Lightning for a second-round pick, and they eventually flipped him to the Toronto Maple Leafs for a third-rounder. After injuries started taking their toll, the Michigan native moved back to Detroit to work in construction. His son Christian Wolanin is now an Ottawa Senators prospect.

Here he is wearing the Nordiques' classic blue uniform:

The card on the left is #40 from Topps' 1990-91 Topps set while the one on the right is from Pro Set's inaugural 1990-91 Series 2 collection. They are considered his "rookie" cards, because even though he'd been in the league for six years at the time, these were the first time he was included in official card sets.

He was also shown wearing Québec's home (white) uniform on card #217 from Score's 1991-92 Pinnacle (French Canadian Edition) set:

He signed all three in black sharpie a couple of years ago. They fit in nicely as the entry for #6 in my Nordiques Numbers Project.

Internationally, he's suited up for Team USA four times, finishing fourth at the 1987 World Juniors and 1991 and 1994 World Championships and second at the 1991 Canada Cup. Ironically, his point production playing for the American team (4 goals, 5 assists and 9 points in 25 games, for 0.36 points per game) are even better than his NHL average (0.2489), even his average during his prime, at ages 23-28 (0.25).

Steve Bozek: Three Autographed Cards

(As per years past, this is a twin-post with my "regular" blog, where I predicted the Vancouver Canucks would finish fifth in the Pacific Division in 2019-20).

Those were my favourite Vancouver Canucks jerseys by far. The predominant black, the golden-orange that stands out, and just a bit of red to accent both. I miss them dearly.

Steve Bozek had 89 points in 41 games in his draft year playing for the NCAA's Northern Michigan University Wildcats, so it was a bit of a surprise to see him fall to 53rd overall, which is when the Los Angeles Kings called his name out. To prove he was no fluke, he led all College players the following year with 90 points in 44 games, a team record that still stands.

He had an immediate impact with the Kings, as an injury to Charlie Simmer gave him the opportunity to line up with Marcel Dionne and Dave Taylor on the first line; his 33 goals were a team record for a rookie at the time, but have since been surpassed by Luc Robitaille (45 in 1986-87).

It would be short-sighted to not at least put a caveat to the fact that his rookie season was his best, statistically, what with his 33 goals, 23 assists and 56 points all being career highs; the fact of the matter is he's missed 10 to 25 games to injury in most following seasons, sometimes over 40, and he still put up point-per-game averages close to 0.5 seven times, including in his penultimate season, in 1990-91, which was his last one with the Canucks.

Between his time in L.A. and all the way up the coast to Vancouver, he spent the bulk of five seasons with the Calgary Flames earning praise for his two-way play and helping them reach the 1986 Stanley Cup Final, and 7 games with the St. Louis Blues. His final NHL season was in 1991-92, as he signed a one-year deal as a free agent with the San Jose Sharks before playing one year in Italy (11 points in 15 games in 1992-93) and one game in Slovenia in 1993-94.

But I remember him best from his days with the Canucks, where he proved to be a strong penalty killer. Here he is on a slightly blurry picture with card #293 from Pro Set's 1990-91 Series 1 set:

And here he is on two cards from Topps:

On the left is card #325 from the 1991-92 Bowman collection, while the one on the right is #28 from the 1991-92 Stadium Club set, with the mention that he's now with the Sharks.

He signed all three cards for me in black sharpie at a card show in Toronto a couple of years back; I think he lives there now and works as a financial advisor.

He won a silver medal with Team Canada at the 1991 World Championships.

Nick Fotiu Autographed Card

From tough guy Craig Berube to a former amateur heavyweight champion, I thought we could take a minute to talk about Nick Fotiu, a payer who started skating at the age of 15 after going to his first New York Rangers game in the nosebleeds at Madison Square Garden, who had already earned accolades in soccer and was two years from a local boxing championship.

How did he make up for lost time to compete against guys who had a ten-year head start?

I’d go anywhere where I could get ice – Coney Island, Long Island, anywhere. I’d go at 3:30 in the morning three times a week so I could get extra ice time. And I took the ax because I was 15-16 years old and didn’t have anyone to take me anywhere. I had to do it all by the subway system, so coming home at 11-12 o’clock, I needed something for protection. People don’t even want to get on the train at 6 o’clock much less (past) midnight.

He also put time in summer camps, which is where he met Rangers GM Emile Francis and Blueshirts superstar Rod Gilbert, both of whom would help him reach the lower tiers of the Rangers' system, until a call from the WHA's New England Whalers came, to have him released to play in a WHA postseason run.

He spent two years with the Whalers, then re-signed with the Rangers in the summer of 1976. He was a fan favourite at MSG, not just as the first NYC-born Ranger but also due to his thunderous checks and relentless play (which involved a lot of "sticking up for his teammates", to the tune of 1754 total major-league penalty minutes. He was so appreciated that he was claimed in the expansion draft three years later... by the Whalers. They eventually traded him back to the Rangers, with whom he played for parts of five additional seasons.

He was sent to the Calgary Flames for the 1985-86 season - which had them fall to the Montréal Canadiens in the Stanley Cup final; says Fotiu:

Calgary traded for me at 34 years old for a sixth-round pick (in 1987) because they thought I was one of the ingredients to beat Edmonton. And it turned out they were right. We outscored (Wayne) Gretzky’s line, beat them in the playoffs and then lost to the Canadiens in the Stanley Cup final. That was pretty neat.

Flames Assistant-GM Al Coates goes further in his analysis of the 1986 Final:

If Nick hadn’t gotten hurt, we may well have beaten Montreal in the finals. (Habs tough guys) John Kordic and Chris Nilan weren’t afraid of Tim Hunter. They were terrified of Nicky.

After another year in Calgary, Fotiu spent the 1987-88 season with the Philadelphia Flyers - themselves a year removed from the 1987 Cup run - and 1988-89 with the Edmonton Oilers, a season sandwiched between two Cup-winning Oilers teams... the year the Flames won theirs. So close.

Here he is on card #26 from Topps' 2001-02 Topps/O-Pee-Chee Archive set, wearing the New England Whalers' white (home) uniform:

He signed it in black sharpie during his time as an assistant-coach with the the Rangers' AHL affiliate, the Hartford Wolf Pack (2002-05).

One thing that comes to mind when I think of Fotiu - apart from the near-Cup misses - is the fact that he'd throw or shoot puck into the cheap seats after each home pre-game warm-up, a nod to the only place where he was able to afford tickets as a kid, a wish to have less economically-fortunate folks have a chance at being close to the action, and taking a chance that it might one day inspire a kid to lace up the skates. This is partly why he was named the recipient of the Fan Club Favourite Award for most of his years in Manhattan.

Paul Holmgren Three Autographed Cards

Paul Holmgren has had prominent roles with the Philadelphia Flyers for over 40 years at this point, so many always assume he's one of the all-time greats alongside Bobby Clarke, Bernard Parent, Ron Hextall and Eric Lindros.

That is absolutely not the case.

In 500 games with the Flyers, Holmgren's 309 points don't stand out as much as his 1600 penalty minutes, and he wasn't part of one of the two championship teams, having come in to play a single game in 1975-76, a full year after Philly's last Stanley Cup.

He only surpassed the 20-goal mark twice, scoring 22 in 1980-81 and 30 in 1979-80, and even that was only good for fith on the team, behind Reggie Leach (50), Bill Barber (40), Brian Propp (34) and Rick MacLeish (31). That was a weird season in Philadelphia, as captain Clarke not only posted 69 points (good for fifth on the team behind Ken Linseman, Leach, Propp and Barber) but was also in his first of three seasons as assistant-coach on the team. He played two years past his three-year stint as assistant-coach... not that's a legend.

In case you were wondering where I was going with this, Holmgren resigned as the team's President earlier today and joined the ranks of "advisor" alongside Clarke, his predecessor both as GM and President.

Unlike Clarke, however, "Homer" made a lot of questionable moves that greatly backfired, such as trading young (and heavy-partying) core players Mike Richards and Jeff Carter to make room under the salary cap to sign the second-best available free agent goalie on the market, Ilya Bryzgalov, to a nine-year, $51M contract, a deal that was bought out in the summer of 2013 after two seasons and that will be on the Flyers' cap until 2027. (For the record, I don't think Richards and Carter get the wake-up call that turns them into two-time Cup champions if they don't get traded, so at least there's that).

Oh, and to make room for him on the roster, he traded Sergei Bobrovsky to the Columbus Blue Jackets for a second-round pick and two fourth-rounders; Bob, of course, would go on to win two Vezina trophies as the league's best goalie in Columbus and is the only active goalie who can make such a claim. (And yes, Henrik Lundqvist is till playing and just has one to his name).

By the way, the best free agent goalie on the market the year Bryz was signed? That was perennial All-Star Tomas Vokoun, who signed a one-year deal worth $1.5M.

Holmgren is also the one who traded playoff best and projected 30-goal forward James van Riemsdyk (he would hit the mark twice and come close another two in the following six seasons) to the Toronto Maple Leafs for defensive defenseman on a down slide Luke Schenn.

Was he also able to trade away valuable draft picks, you ask? How about the first-rounder who became John Carlson for defenseman Steve Eminger (man, does he ever love those stay-at-home defensemen!), who played a total of 12 games in Philadelphia (0 goals, 2 assists, 8 penalty minutes) before being shipped out?

Then there was the free agent signings of Nikolay Zherdev and the trade for Andrej Meszaros which put the team over the cap, forcing them to trade away a contract - namely that of fan-favourite and playoff hero Simon Gagné, a two-time 40-*goal scorer and one opf the most prolific scorers of the Dead Puck Era - for (you guessed it!) defensive defenseman Matt Walker, who played the final 8 games of his 314-game career with the Flyers. Gagné reached the Cup Final the following season with the Tampa Bay Lightning and won the Cup with Richards and Carter on a mighty Flyer-heavy 2012 Los Angeles Kings squad.

A trade of pests? Sure! Effective checking winger and semi-power forward Scottie Upshall for dirtbag and suspension magnet Dan "Carbomb" Carcillo comes to mind...

And yet he kept failing upwards. Until as team Preseident, he hired Hextall as GM, who did an admirable job stocking up the cupboards with blue chip prospects and getting rid of Holmgren's terrible contracts. Hextall was assitant-HGM on the Cup-winning Kings of 2012 and 2014, so he was more than familiar with the Flyers' roster; it was a marriage that lasted for four seasons, until last Christmas, when Holgmren decided Hextall wasn't bold enough and took his place to finish up the season, until he found his replacement in the form of Chuck Fletcher, the man who saddled the Minnesota Wild with so many bad contracts that they were never good enough to make a dent in the post-season despite carrying not one but two (Ryan Suter and Zach Parise) players on identical 13-year, $98M contracts.

Of course, the first few things Fletcher did was get rid of a third of the defense and, most importantly, sign Kevin Hayes - a middle-six center who had only reached the 50-point plateau once, and that was last year - to an albatross seven-year, $50M contract that includes a no-movement clause that guarantees he will have to take up a protection spot for next season's expansion draft.

Bold. Extremely stupid and ill-advised, but bold.

So, yeah. Holmgren.

This is what he looked like when patrolling the ice in a Flyers uniform, collecting penalty minutes the way some folks do frequent flyer miles:

The card on the left is #105 in Topps' 1981-82 Topps set, while the one on the right is #434 from In The Game's 2004-05 Franchises: U.S. East collection. Both feature him in the classic 1970s orange (away) uniform.

A Minnesota native, Holmgren started out his professional career playing for the WHA's Minnesota Fighting Saints for most of the 1975-76 season, and he returned to his home state at the tail end of his career, suiting up with the Minnesota North Stars for 27 games spread over two seasons, as seen on card #100 from O-Pee-Chee's 1984-85 O-Pee-Chee set:

He's wearing the team's amazing 1980s green (away) uniform. I miss those so much.

All three were signed in black sharpie in February 2018 when the Flyers were in Montréal.

Brent Ashton: Two Autographed Cards

Three weeks ago, the NHL trade deadline saw nearly 50 trades happen with a total of 83 actual players switching teams (one of them, Derick Brassard, moving twice) with just about the same number of draft picks switching owners.

No stranger to moving, Brent Ashton was the NHL's record-holder in that category for more than a decade, having been traded eight times in his 14-season career, a feat that was tied by Mike Sillinger in 2004 and surpassed two years later.

Fun fact: both Ashton and Sillinger hail from Saskatchewan, and both returned to their respective hometowns of Saskatoon and Regina upon retiring from the NHL. Fittingly, Ashton owns a sportswear business and is a licensed... real estate agent. He does know a thing or two about purchasing and moving into and out of homes, after all.

His wife Susan, however, may have had the most experience in that matter according to a 2009 interview with the NHL's website:

"There was no help," she says.

Susan was the one who said goodbye to her friends, sold the home, found a moving company, had the mail redirected, found a new place to live, got the phone hooked up and set up shop in a new city, where she started all over again. She didn't have a dressing room to offer shelter from the storm.

"It wasn't easy," says Brent about what his wife had to juggle.  "As players, we have the dressing room. What do the wives have? They were left on their own."

Of all the moves she's been through, Susan says the one time she was close to the edge emotionally was in 1991. She recalls being at the Winnipeg airport on her way to Boston with a lot on her plate.

"I had a 6-month-old, a 2 1/2-year-old and I had a dog, which was running around the airport, and I had our luggage," she says. "It was left up to me to move. But what could I do? What was the alternative? But I didn't cry. We were fortunate because our kids were not in school."

Their son, Carter Ashton, was a Tampa Bay Lightning draft pick (29th overall, first round, 2009) who now plays in the KHL after a few years in the Toronto Maple Leafs organization.

Brent's prime took place between the 1984-85 and 1989-90 seasons, where he had six consecutive 50-plus-point seasons (all of them with more than 20 goals), with a high of 40 goals and 75 points in 1986-87, which was split almost evenly between the Québec Nordiques and Detroit Red Wings.

He finished his career two games shy of the 1000 mark, with 284 goals and 345 assists for 629 points. He also had three solid postseason runs (one in Québec and two in Detroit) in which he amassed 35 of his career 49 playoff points (in 85 games).

His time in Québec occurring just before I started really paying attention to the sport, I mostly remember him with the Winnipeg Jets, which is why that's the team I had him sign cards from.

First, here he is wearing the team's initial purple (away) uniform on card #130 from Topps' 1990-91 Bowman collection:

Those long white sleeves are a look then-GM John Ferguson had previously tried to impose when with the New York Rangers (to vitriolic reviews) and brought over to the Jets when they made the switch from the WHA to the NHL.

They then modernized their look for the 1990s, as can be attested from card #78 from Score's 1991-92 Score (Canadian Edition) set:

He signed both in black sharpie. These cards allow me to induct him beside Keith Tkachuk as wearers of #7 in my Jets Numbers Project.

Kirk Muller Autographed Card

A cool nickname, "Captain Kirk". The second-overall pick of the 1984 draft. Captain of the New Jersey Devils and Montréal Canadiens. Stanley Cup winner. All-Star. Had he had his say, that's the way the story would have ended for Kirk Muller, a path that may have led him to the Hal of Fame.

Instead, after assurances from GM Serge Savard that he would not get traded - and that if he were to be, that it be to a contending team - he was sent to the New York Islanders on April 5th, 1995, along with Mathieu Schneider and Craig Darby.

What had changed? Isles GM Don Maloney felt his team needed to add grit and a hard work ethic to his team, and made captain Pierre Turgeon - a French Canadian star - available, for one; also, the Habs needed to get rid of Schneider after a fistfight with star goalie Patrick Roy in Philadelphia in a personal matters issue that was never going to be resolved. Schenider's value didn't match Turgeon's, so the Habs added their own captain and a prospect to the deal, and the Isles added Vladimir Malakhov, an extremely talented but enigmatic (and perhaps lazy) defenseman, on their end.

But Muller wanted nothing to do with the Islanders. So much so that he didn't report to the team. At first, Maloney offered him to take some "personal time" to get his "affairs in order", but when it looked like he was never going to report to the team, Maloney had to promise to try to trade him over the summer, after which Muller suited up for the team's last 12 games of the season.

Then the team introduced its "Fishstick Fisherman" jersey, and half the team wanted out. I don't know what it took to get Muller to smile here, but I bet it had something to do with the photographer telling him he was probably never going to have to wear it on the ice:

That's card #115 from Topps' 1995-96 Topps set, which he signed in blue sharpie in his first stint as a Canadiens assistant coach.

When the 1995-96 season came along, Muller's trade value had plummeted, with every GM in the league knowing full well he wanted out and trying to short-change the Islanders in a deal. Muller flat-out stopped trying and was sent home in early November to await a trade, with his full salary. Due to his inability to deal with the issue, Maloney was fired on December 2nd, replaced by "Mad" Mike Milbury, who sent him to the Toronto Maple Leafs in January, with veteran goalie Don Beaupre, in a three-team swap that netted the Isles Martin Straka, Bryan Berard and Ken Belanger.

He had a bit of a resurgence with the Leafs, posting 25 points (9 goals, 16 assists) in 36 games, but the following season it became clear he had lost a step and could no longer contribute as a second-liner. He would play two and a half years with the Florida Panthers (to little fanfare) before joining fellow former Habs leaders Guy Carbonneau, Craig Ludwig, Mike McPhee, Mike Keane and Brian Skrudland with the Dallas Stars, where he spent his final four seasons.

And how do Isles fans feel about his short time on Long Island? Here's an interesting take:

We've heard about French Canadian players avoiding signing with the Habs because of the pressure their fans will put on them. Take my word for it, that's a good problem to have. It means the players understand exactly what will be expected of them and, if they're not up to the challenge, you probably wouldn't want them anyway.

Players avoiding the Islanders is a horse of a different colo(u)r, though. They're usually borne from not understanding, or wanting to understand, what the hell's even going on over there on Long Island. This is a much larger problem to have. And until it's fixed for good, every big-time player could potentially fill Kirk Muller's old unwanted jersey.

Which was number 9. Which was Clark Gillies' number. Who is still a god on Long Island. Which is yet another reason to hate the piece of shit prick Muller.

It's the complete opposite in Montréal, where Muller is one of two non-French-speaking coaches (with McGill University alumnus Mike Babcock) fans would accept as head coach of the storied Canadiens - and that's saying a lot.

Steve Larouche Autographed Card

Like many Montrealers, I keep moving (on average every other year); with each move comes a trial period while I try to figure out how to display some of my stuff (DVDs and Blu-rays, signed cards, signed pictures in frames, paintings, show artwork) and I always temporarily misplace stuff.

Right now, I can't find the thousand cards I had slated to feature next starting in April, but I did find another box of "unused" autographs like this one of Steve Larouche, sporting the Ottawa Senators' old white uniform, with the somewhat-rare #74:

It's card #38 from Topps' 1995-96 Topps set, which he signed in blue sharpie in 2010-11.

He had his finest NHL moments with the Sens, posting 15 points in 18 games, including his lone NHL hat trick against the team that drafted him 41st overall in 1989, the Montréal Canadiens, on April 3rd, 1995.

I have many more of his cards... somewhere!

Stay tuned, I should be able to post them before 2030.

Brandon Watson Autographed Card

When Brandon Watson was drafted by the fledgling Montréal Expos in the ninth round in 1999, there was some level of excitement, because he's the godson of former Cincinnati Reds star Eric Davis.

It didn't turn out that way, and he eventually toiled around in the minor league systems of the Florida Marlins, Reds, Detroit Tigers, Cleveland Indians, Washington Nationals, Philadelphia Phillies, Arizona Diamondbacks, and Los Angeles Dodgers.

He did play in the Majors - with the Expos' descendants, the Nationals, no less - appearing in 40 total games over three seasons between 2005 and 2007. His career batting average stands at .198.

He does have a minor-league record, however, having hit in 43 consecutive games in the International League with the Columbus Clippers in 2007.

Here he is sporting the Expos' #20 - which he never wore in an actual game - on card #321 from Topps' 2003 Bowman collection and First Year Card sub-set, identifying it as his rookie card:

He signed it in blue sharpie, on top of the silver facsimile autograph on the card.

He wore #00 with the Nationals.