Turner Stevenson Autograph Card

Montréal Canadiens captain Max Pacioretty has been on a tear lately, which may have something to do with playing with offensive genius Alexander Radulov and perhaps also with Team USA head coach John Tortorella singling him out during the World Cup. Or perhaps he has finally found the maturity to be able to lead an NHL team.

Whatever the reason, though, Pacioretty has now elevated his game to that of a big-time player, no longer a 30-goal scorer specializing in scoring hat tricks in 6-3 losses but an actual difference maker.

That's a pretty long detour to come back to Turner Stevenson, isn't it?

Pacioretty was a 22th overall pick in 2007, thought to be a power forward in the making; Stevenson was drafted 12th overall in 1990, with similar aspirations.

Obviously, with 75 goals in 644 games, Stevenson became something other than a first-line John LeClair-type, but no one can take away his Stanley Cup (2002-03, with the New Jersey Devils), something Pacioretty still lacks; the latter does have three straight 30-goal seasons and is five removed from a fourth this year, however.

I actually thought the 2005-06 Philadelphia Flyers, coached by Ken Hitchcock and featuring Stevenson in a reduced role but also the likes of Simon Gagné, Mike Richards, Jeff Carter, Peter Forsberg, Joni Pitkanen, R.J. Umberger, Éric Desjardins, Derian Hatcher, Petr Nedved, Donald Brashear and an injured Keith Primeau would win it again, but unfortunately, they were brought down by Carter and Richards' lack of maturity and hard-partying ways, as well as shoddy goaltending from Robert Esche and Antero Niittymaki.

And so today, reminiscing about the times when the Habs would select heavy guys from the WHL in the first round instead of American kids looking at four years of College Hockey, I have decided to feature the signed silver version of card #71 from In The Game's 1998-99 Be A Player set:

It shows him wearing the Canadiens' white (then-home) uniform, and a thin black-sharpied on-card autograph.

Turner Stevenson Autograph Card

With the news of Bob Gainey joining the St. Louis Blues as a consultant to Ken Hitchcock and Doug Armstrong, I decided to knock off #23 from my Habs Numbers Project with... Turner Stevenson.

It's not that I'm boycotting Gainey for having been a so-so general manager with the Habs or for firing coaches uselessly, but I wrote him in February 2012 sending three cards and he never answered, so I decided to go another route.

Stevenson was the Montréal Canadiens' first-round draft pick (12th overall) in 1990 - one of the deepest drafts in modern hockey history - ahead of All-Stars Keith Tkachuk (19th), Martin Brodeur (20th), Bryan Smolinski (21st), Félix Potvin (31st), Doug Weight (34th), Geoff Sanderson (36th), Mikael Renberg (40th), Vyacheslav (Slava) Kozlov (45th), Alexei Zhamnov (77th), Gilbert Dionne (81st), Sergei Zubov (85th), Roman Turek (113th), Robert Lang (133rd), Peter Bondra (156th), Jaroslav Modry (179th), Espen Knutsen (204th), and enforcers Gino Odjick (86th), Enrico Ciccone (92nd), and Craig Martin (98th).

After accumulating 29 goals and 61 points in 62 games (but more importantly 276 penalty minutes) with the Seattle Thunderbirds, the Habs continued their 1980s and 1990s streak of drafting heavy Western Canadian players who would end up not being impact players at the NHL level (or not even playing at all), hoping they'd found that huge power forward who could score a ton of goals for a long time and defend their teammates. Like Tkachuk or Renberg.

Instead, they got a slow, heavy winger who could play 10 to 13 minutes per game and whose highest goals total in Montréal was 10, in 1998-99. He would score 14 in 2003-04 with the New Jersey Devils, with whom he made it to the Stanley Cup Finals twice, losing to the Colorado Avalanche in 2001 and winning the prized trophy in 2003.

But you can't fault a guy for being who and what he is, and Turner Stevenson was a player who would suit up in 644 NHL games, scoring 75 goals and tallying 190 points in the process. He didn't ask to be a first-round pick, and he finished with his name engraved on the sport's ultimate trophy.

Here he is waiting for a pass, wearing the Canadiens' white (then-home) uniform, from Pinnacle's 1997-98 Be A Player set (card #181), an insert card signed in thin black sharpie with his uniform number added (23):