Mammoth Preview: Maveric Lamoureux Autograph Card

(team and product links go to sponsored Amazon products, player links go to related pages on my blog, news links go to source pages)

This will likely be the preface to all of this year's Season Preview posts: Unlike in the distant past where I would post different texts on this collectibles blog and my personal one, I've been using a new format for the past couple of years, where I'll copy the same text on each one. As a father of two young kids, I just do not have enough time to write two separate posts per day on each blog. This year again, the entire scope of the analysis will take place first and the featured player will have a direct or perhaps indirect connection to what's written, below.

Caveats: At this point, despite training camp being set to start in a couple of weeks, several players haven't found a team yet, (at least) three star players have active trade requests, and a few clubs are currently above the salary cap, which means there is much left to do.

Key exits: J.J. Peterka (RW), Vitek Vanecek (G), Sean Durzi (D), Ian Cole (D), Alexander Kerfoot (C), Andrew Agozzino (LW), Maksymilian Szuber (D), Cole Beaudoin (C), Scott Perunovich (D)

Key Arrivals: Vincent Trochek (C), Anders Lee (LW), Joshua Roy (RW), Sebastian Cossa (G), Zac Jones (D), Andrew Peeke (D)

Top prospects: Caleb Desnoyers (C, 19), Tij Iginla (C, 20), Maveric Lamoureux (D, 22),Cossa (G, 21), Daniil But (RW, 21), Ethan Belchetz (LW, 18), Michael Hrabal (G, 21), Dmitri Simachev (D, 21)

This franchise has pretty much always been seen as a team on the rise, but they often get caught behind the Central Division powerhouses like the Colorado Avalanche, Minnesota Wild and Dallas Stars. But those teams seem to be in a limited window due to their aging cores; the Utah Mammoth are just entering a ten-year playoff contention window that should have a decent four-year run at the Stanley Cup in the middle of it.

What makes their odds look good:
Look at that list of Prime prospects! And the current core is also young and excellent. They are well-coached by André Tourigny, and GM Bill Armstrong is also at the top of his game.

Question marks:
Can Karel Vejmelka find the consistency that being a #1 goalie requires over many seasons? Will Clayton Keller continue his ascension into a 90-point player? Is Logan Cooley ready to produce at a point-per-game average over a full season? How long can John Marino keep playing at a pace that keeps up with the league's elite defensive defensemen?

Outlook:
This is a playoff team, and had they been in the Pacific, they might have finished first in the division, and would be second or third in the Metropolitan. There is no superstar on the team, but their balance is nearly on the level of the Carolina Hurricanes and Montréal Canadiens.

Prediction:
4th in the Central Division.

Two of the Mammoth's top prospects, Desnoyers and Lamoureux, hail from the LHJMQ, which has been a rare occurence in the last two decades. The Québec and Maritimes' top Juniors league and overall hockey ecosystem used to produce the world's best goalies (Georges Vézina, Jacques Plante, Bernared Parent, Rogatien Vachon, Patrick Roy, Martin Brodeur, Jean-Sébastien Giguère, Roberto Luongo, Marc-André Fleury), Hall of Fame forwards and defensemen (Maurice Richard, Jean Béliveau, Doug Harvey, Mario Lemieux, Denis Savard, Vincent Lecavalier, Sidney Crosby), as well as more than half of the NHL's tough guys; in 2025-26, Québec-born players barely accounted for 8% of the NHL as a whole, meaning that a fictionnal Team Québec would have gone from a medal contender to barely a participant in an Olympic-like tournament.

Lamoureux is a unique player: 6'7", 215 pounds (projected to play at 220-225 in the NHL), gifted offensively, able to pass cross-ice between skaters, very physical with good gaps. Chosen 29th overall in 2022, he projects to have a higher ceiling than what was originally thought of Hall Of Fame defenseman Zdeno Chara when he was drafted 56th overall in 1996. I do not necessarily see that for Lamoureux, but am not against seeing him with a career path like a harder-to-play-against one-time All-Star and Stanley Cup champion Kevin Shattenkirk.

Here he is on the signed insert version of card #314 from Upper Deck's 2023-24 CHL collection and Stars sub-set:

It shows him wearing the Drummondville Voltigeurs' white (home) uniform (and alternate captain's "A") at a face-off, and features a blue on-sticker autograph that was added to the card.

Panthers Preview: Noah Juulsen Jersey Card

(team and product links go to sponsored Amazon products, player links go to related pages on my blog, news links go to source pages)

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.

New GM Bill Zito will get a chance to put his stamp on this roster with new Scouting Director Shane Churla, but make no mistake: this roster built by Dale Tallon will the the second one after the 2009-10 Chicago Blackhawks that head coach Joel Quenneville will lead to Stanley Cup contention for another man.

What makes their odds look good:
The lineup that Tallon was able to put together that makes up this core is solid: captain Aleksander Barkov is one of the premier two-way #1 centers in the NHL and his linemate Jonathan Huberdeau is one of the most underrated forwards in the game; both have surpassed the 90-point mark in this scoring-depleted era; Aaron Ekblad is becoming the elite defender Tallon thought he would be; bad season or not (and it was bad), Sergei Bobrovsky remains the only active two-time Vezina winner and now knows what he has in front of him (and has François Allaire and Roberto Luongo to help fix his game); and there is good, young talent on the depth chart in Owen Tippett, Anton Lundell and Grigori Denisenko up-front, and Spencer Knight is one of the most highly-touted goaltending prospects in the world. All of that talent is not just "very good" but "elite".

Question marks:
Was Bob's season a one-off or the start of a decline? How quickly will Keith Yandle's own decline happen and will it force the team to buy out his contract? Who will back Bob up, Chris Driedger or Samuel Montembeault, and is either one ready to play at least once per week in this condensed schedule?

Outlook:
I've been on the Panthers train for years and like a bad gambler, I'm still looking at those pieces and feeling confident they can pull it together, and I like the gambles on young once-promising prospects Gustav Forsling (24, acquired on the waiver wire yesterday) and Noah Juulsen (23, acquired earlier today via waivers).

Prediction:
Fourth in the Central Division.

Yes, fourth, which is as much an indictment of the Nashville Predators' lack of offense and of the Minnesota Wild's unconvincing rebuild as a testament to the Panthers' (slow and) steady march towards respectability.

Which brings me to Juulsen, a late first-round pick (26th overall in 2015) by the Montréal Canadiens, following a near point-per-game season as a defenseman with the WHL's Everett Silvertips.

Juulsen is not the fastest skater by any means, but he gets where he needs to be in respectable time, is rarely out of a play or out of positiion and is willing to take a hit to make a play that he sees possible. He's very cerebral, a skill that tends to gain value for defensemen between the ages of 25 and 33 but that may show him a tenth of a second late in extreme-pressure situations before that - such as manning the point on the power play and keeping the puck in the zone against two opponents at once. His patience with the puck is appreciated, however.

For now, even though he played his first games as a 20-year-old, he's been hampered by vision and concussion issues from two seperate hits to the head (including a puck to the face) in the same game, so while he still holds first-round pedigree and youth, the focus should be in allowing him to feel comfortable enough to play in a highly-competitive environment again, something that would perhaps be better to learn in the AHL - still a development league, after all - than in the NHL, where some mercenaries play mean.

Here he is sporting the Habs' red (home) uniform on card #RM-J from Upper Deck's 2018-19 Series 2 collection and Rookie Materials sub-set:

It features a matching jersey swatch that the back of the card says "has been certified to The Upper Deck Company as having been worn by the featured player". I wonder how many lawyers were required to write and review that sentence.

Internationally, Juulsen has a silver medal with Team Canada from the World Juniors.

My Canucks Numbers Project: An Introduction

After my Habs Numbers Project, my Oilers Numbers Project and my Sens Numbers Project, might as well get started publicly admitting I'm also on a Canucks Numbers Project.

The team as it is known now was founded in 1970 and has changed uniforms a lot since, at the rate of once every five years or so, usually in a complete overhaul.

The Canucks' and Sens' players have been the most responsive in answering my requests, I think, when it comes to current players, in the many years since I've started blogging about cards and collectibles, and I've been getting a decent amount of in-pack hits as well to get me started on my quest, with 29/67 worn uniform numbers accounted for so far, which is why I decided to pursue the task.

Here's the list of those I have featured here thus far:

Head Coach: Marc Crawford: check!
1: Kirk McLean: check! (also: Roberto Luongo 4x6)
2: Dan Hamhuis: check!
3: Kevin Bieksa, Brent Sopel and Doug Lidster: check!
5: Bryan Allen (twice): check!
6: Adrian Aucoin: check!
7: David Roberts: check!
10: Pavel Bure: check!
12: Stan Smyl (twice): check!
14: Alexandre Burrows (twice), Geoff Courtnall and Steve Bozek: check!
16: Trevor Linden once, (then twice): check!
17: Ryan Kesler, Radim Vrbata and Bill Muckalt: check!
18: Igor Larionov: check!
19: Markus Naslund, Petr Nedved and Jim Sandlak: check!
21: Mason Raymond: check!
22: Daniel Sedin: jersey card check!
24: Curt Fraser: check!
25: Dan Kesa: check!
26: Frank Corrado: check!
27: Sergio Momesso and Harold Snepsts: check!
33: Henrik Sedin: jersey card check!
35: Alex Auld and Troy Gamble: check!
36: Jannik Hansen: check!
40: Maxim Lapierre: check!
41: Curtis Sanford and Ronalds Kenins: check!
44: Todd Bertuzzi: jersey card check!
45: Jordan Schroeder: check!
46: Nicklas Jensen: check!
47: Yann Sauvé: check!
48: Hunter Shinkaruk: check!
49: Zack Fitzgerald: check!
58: Robert Kron (twice): check!

Captains: 5 of 13: Smyl, Lidster, Linden, Naslund, Luongo, H. Sedin


Which means I'm looking to fill these (luckily I have all 4 retired numbers):

4: GM Jim Benning, Gerald Diduck or Nolan Baumgartner would be nice
8: Willie Mitchell and Chris Tanev
9: I sent Zack Kassian mail years ago, might have to ask Brad May instead
11: no one's worn it since Mark Messier's odd turn as a Canuck
13: Nick Bonino's number, Raffi Torres' too
15: the most-worn number in team history
20: I really liked Alexander Semak back in the day
23: Alexander Edler or Marc Bergevin work well here
28: I've been meaning to write Dave Capuano...
29: Aaron Rome or Tom Sestito work
30: I'll try Ryan Miller and Garth Snow
31: Eddie Lack did not respond, I'll try Corey Hirsch
32: I tried Dale Wiese last year, I'll give it more time
34: I probably have a Jassen Cullimore
37: Jarkko Ruutu would be cool
38: Pavol Demitra or Jan Bulis would be nice
39: this is Dan Cloutier's number
42: Josef Beranek wore it first

And the following numbers have only been worn by one or two players: 48, 51, 52, 53, 54, 55, 57, 62, 64, 66, 71, 72, 77, 79, 81, 89 and 96.

Jean-Pierre Dumont Autographed Team Canada Card

Jean-Pierre Dumont was drafted third-overall by the New York Islanders in 1996 following a 105-point season (48 goals and 57 assists in 66 games) with the LHJMQ's Val d'Or Foreurs. He was part of a stable of high-end talent that was traded away by "Mad" Mike Milbury, then team's GM. Imagine this roster from 1996 to 2001 (assuming All-Star Zigmund Palffy would still get traded because of his contract demands):

Todd Bertuzzi - Jason Spezza (2nd-overall draft pick) - J.P. Dumont

Derek King - Olli Jokinen - Tim Connolly / Robert Reichel

Jan Hlavac - Mike Rupp - Bryan Smolinski

Taylor Pyatt - Claude Lapointe - Raffi Torres

Zdeno Chara - Bryan McCabe

Wade Redden - Darius Kasparaitis

Bryan Berard - Eric Brewer / Kenny Jonsson

Radek Martinek - Scott Lachance

Olympians Roberto Luongo and Tommy Salo in nets

With eventual turnover (2001-2006, when he was fired) from the likes of: Sean Bergenheim (grinder), Frans Nielsen (middle-six forward), Robert Nilsson (middle-six forward), Bruno Gervais (third-pair D), Petteri Nokelainen (middle-six forward), Blake Comeau (sandpaper second-liner), Chris Campoli (third-paid D), Kyle Okposo (first-line forward), Andrew MacDonald (third-pair D), Mariusz Czerkawski (top-sic forward), Rick DiPietro (goalie) and three dozen prospects who could have panned out in a better environment.

That has the makings of a consistent playoff team, and one can argue that different draft choices (Zach Parise, Brent Burns, Ryan Kesler, Mike Richards, Corey Perry, Patrice Bergeron, Corey Crawford, Shea Weber, and Joe Pavelski were still available when Nilsson was chosen 15th overall in 2003, for instance) would also have made a huge difference as well.

Instead, the Isles were perpetually in the bottom of the NHL standings while Dumont carved himself a nice NHL career, ending with over 500 points on the strength of 214 goals, 309 assists and 364 penalty minutes in 822 regular-season games and another 34 points (17 goals and 17 assists) in 51 playoff games, including a deep run to the Eastern Conference Final in 2005-06 with the Buffalo Sabres (14 points in 18 games).

He was bought out by the Nashville Predators following the 2010-11 season and played the 2011-12 season overseas with SC Bern in Switzerland, finishing his playing career with solid numbers: 8 goals, 23 assists and 31 points (with 26 penalty minutes and a +6 rating) in 31 regular-season games - good for fourth on the team despite playing 16 to 19 games fewer than those ahead of him, none of whom had more than 10 points more tahn he did - and another (team-leading) 5 goals, 8 assists and 13 points in 12 playoff games as the team made its way to the league final, losing to Bob Hartley's Zurich Lions.

In honour of Canada Day, I wanted to include Dumont as #18 in my Team Canada Numbers Project, with card #271 from Upper Deck's 1998-99 Collector's Choice set and World Junior Showcase sub-set, where he is shown battling for the puck with a Finnish player:

He actually went pointless in 7 games with Team Canada at the World Juniors in 1998, as the team finished eighth in the standings - Finland won gold, ahead of Russia and Switzerland - under disgraced head coach Réal Paiement (now a Toronto Maple Leafs scout). The team's leading scorers were Josh Holden (4 points), Alex Tanguay, Daniel Tkaczuk and Daniel Corso (3 apiece), and the top defensemen were Brewer, Sean Blanchard, Brad Ference and Corey Sarich. Other notable forwards were Vincent Lecavalier, Matt Cooke, Jason Ward, Manny Malhotra and Steve Bégin, while goaltending duties were handled by the Québec duo of Mathieu Garon (1.91 GAA in 5 games) and Luongo (2.89 in 3 games).

Dumont signed this card for me roughly five years ago, at a Foreurs event; the team had retired his #96 nearly a decade earlier.

Cristobal Huet Autographed Card

Because of their usual lack of offensive firepower since the days of Alexei Kovalev Saku Koivu Vincent Damphousse Stéphane Richer Bobby Smith Guy Lafleur, the focus and props for Montréal Canadiens results usually go to the starting goalie, while the blame usually goes to the head coach or GM.

This explains why the Molson Cup, given annually to the player who received most "Three Stars" votes since 1972-73 usually goes to the netminder regardless of star status. As a matter of fact, here is the complete list of winners and number of times the award's been given out:

1. Carey Price (Goalie, 8 times)
2. Guy Lafleur (Left Wing, 7 times including a record six consecutive)
3. Patrick Roy (Goalie, 4 times)
    José Theodore (Goalie, 4 times)
4. Jeff Hackett (Goalie, 2 times)
    Stéphane Richer (Right Wing, 2 times)
    Mats Naslund (Left Wing, 2 times)
    Mark Recchi (Right Wing, 2 times)

And all the following players have each won it once: Ken Dryden (Goalie), Larry Robinson (Defense), Mario Tremblay (Right Wing), Steve Penney (Goalie), Guy Carbonneau (Centre), Russ Courtnall (Right Wing), Kirk Muller (Centre), Pierre Turgeon (Centre), Saku Koivu (Centre), Alexei Kovalev (Right Wing), Cristobal Huet (Goalie), Jaroslav Halak (Goalie), Alex Galchenyuk (Centre/Left Wing), Brendan Gallagher (Right Wing).

Of course, those results are rigged, because Price got First Star of games in which he let in 4 goals or when the other option would have been to give all three stars to opposing players on home ice, so Koivu probably should have at least one more and Max Pacioretty, Tomas Plekanec and Andrei Markov should also have at least one each, but the fact of the matter is that ever since Jacques Lemaire instilled a defense-first system in 1984 that every head coach except Carbonneau has followed to a T, the goalie has been the focus and recipient of all the attention, warranted or not.

Speaking of Carbonneau's system, Huet's win came in 2006-07, when the Habs finished fourth in their division and narrowly missed the playoffs, by a single game, with Halak carrying the team on his shoulders down the stretch but Huet insisting on playing the final game after returning from injury and getting blown out and letting six Toronto Maple Leafs goals go past him on 35 total shots; the team made up for lost ground the following season by winning their division. This signalled the end of his tenure in Montréal and he was traded to the Washington Capitals the following season.

While he received end-of-season All-Star Team votes during his tenure with the Canadiens, it was his season split between the Habs and Caps that got him some Vezina Trophy votes, five in total, including one for second-place and a third-place vote from the NHL's 30 GMs. In a controversial move, Martin Brodeur won it that year when it clearly should have gone to Jean-Sébastien Giguère (2.12 GAA and .922 save percentage) ahead of Henrik Lundqvist, Nicklas Backstrom, Evgeni Nabokov, Roberto Luongo, Tim Thomas and Huet.

Huet would sign with the Chicago Blackhawks the following summer and go on to win the Stanley Cup platooning with Antti Niemi in his second and final season with the team before returning to Europe. In 2014-15, he was clearly the best goalie in Europe, smack-dab in the middle of a six-year stint with Lausanne HC, posting a 24-11-2-4 record in 41 games with a 1.86 goals-against average and .931 save percentage, coming at the heels of a season where he had had a 2.06 GAA and .928 save percentage.

Still, I choose to remember him most as the Habs' #1 goalie, the second to hold that title and be shipped off to make room for Price (after Theodore, before Halak). He had a semi-stand-up style reminiscent of Hackett's and a butterfly that was square and bulky, as shown on this picture that was probably taken during a pre-game warmup session:

That's card #106 from Upper Deck's 2006-07 Victory set, and he signed it in black sharpie just weeks before getting traded to Washington for a second-round pick.

He is now Lausanne's goaltending coach and will be the Ambassador for the Lausanne 2020 Youth Olympics. He's also a perfect entry as #39 in my Habs Numbers Project.

Ed Belfour Jersey Card

Ed Belfour was a mostly-good goalie who had very bad years sprinkled in throughout his career. He won the Calder as the NHL's top rookie in 1990-91 despite also appearing in 23 games in 1988-89 and 9 playoff games in 1989-90 for the Chicago Blackhawks and also captured the Vezina Trophy as the GM's choice for top goalie that same year and in 1992-93, as well as the Stanley Cup in a hugely-contested 1998-99 Final where, according to the rules of the era, Dallas Stars superstar Brett Hull's series-clinching goal should have been disallowed.

The call was bullshit, as were Eddie The Eagle's Vezinas, as was his selection as a first-ballot Hall of Famer, which wouldn't have happened if he hadn't two very good seasons with the Toronto Maple Leafs near the end of his career.

That's my biggest beef with Belfour: he was very good overall.

He had one excellent season (1994-95) in parts of nine years with Chicago, was awful with the San Jose Sharks, was very good for three of five seasons with Dallas but hugely protected by Ken Hitchcock's super-defensive system (and the likes of Derian Hatcher, Richard Matvichuk, Jamie Pushor, and Brad Lukowich while Sergei Zubov and Darryl Sydor were tasked with handing the forwards the puck), was mostly very good in Toronto save for the last season and all the playoffs, and was a parody of himself with the Florida Panthers.

And through it all, one constant: drinking.

I was first a witness to it at the 1993 All-Star Game held in Montréal where he and teammate - and former star defender of the Montréal Canadiens - Chris Chelios took full advantage of the city's legendary night life and were drunk at the skills competition (Belfour letting five goals in) and hung over during the game itself, with their Conference losing 16-6, including Belfour letting the Wales Conference team leave the ice with a 6-0 lead after one period, his opponent, Habs legend Patrick Roy, getting the shutout at the other end of the ice. Maybe Chelios was a bad influence, though.

There were rumours throughout the years, but another documented case was his 2000 arrest in Dallas, where he scared a woman enough to have her call security on him in a hotel while she fled by cab, with Belfour retaliating by putting the bouncer in a headlock and assaulting him. Upon resisting his arrest, he offered the police officers "a billion dollars" if they let him go.

While in Florida in 2007, he got teammate Ville Peltonen in trouble for drunken disorderly conduct and resisting arrest again.

And earlier today, he was "arrested for criminal mischief and alcohol intoxication in a public place after an incident in a hotel early Tuesday morning":

The arrest report says Belfour was lying on the floor clutching a curtain rod that had been ripped out of the dry wall above a window when police approached him.

The report adds that Belfour was kicking a door to the locked spa in an attempt to get in. It says he had slurred speech, bloodshot eyes and could barely stand up.

The police say Belfour was not being compliant when officers tried to put handcuffs on him.

This was his smug mugshot:

This is not meant as an attack, slander or to make fun of him; the man needs help and he has pretended not to for the better part of the past 25 years, getting away with slaps on the wrist that have never taught him a true lesson.

After all, his liquor (whisky) company - Belfour Spirits - has a slogan that seems to tell us how he really feels:

None of this looks like someone who is trying to atone for their troubles with alcohol...

But back to his on-ice achievements.

Again, he was good. All-time great? In the era of Roy, Dominik Hasek and the great-in-numbers-only-but-has-to-be-included Martin Brodeur, not near that trifecta for sure. Considering some of the guys who came after him - Miikka Kiprosoff, Henrik Lundqvist, Roberto Luongo, Sergei Bobrovsky and Tim Thomas - not as consistent as those guys either, no, and no peak as high, either, having never once been dubbed the "best goalie on the planet" for even a year.

On the other hand, imagine if he'd been on top of his game for his entire career, would it have been more consistently close to his peaks, instead of riddled with valleys? Would it have lasted longer at a high level?

Who knows?

But considering the fact that not all retired Vezina winners other than Jim Carey are in the Hall, that some Conn Smythe winners aren't there either, and that one guy who has both will never get there - Ron Hextall, another uneven-but-mostly-very-good goaltender - they could have at least waited for a few years before letting him in.

Here he is in what many consider his "peak" years - a Cup victory, and two seasons with a GAA below 2.00 although Hasek and Ron Tugnutt also had a habit of turning in those types of performances at the time on lesser teams - wearing the Stars' best-looking uniform, the classic green star-shaped jersey from 1997-2006:

That's card #DM-EB from Upper Deck's 2017-18 Black Diamond collection and Diamond Mine Relics sub-set, numbered 63/299. I got it on Ebay in October for under $5. It features a black game-worn jersey swatch that is probably from that uniform.

Kirk McLean Autographed Card

I must admit I was surprised when Twitter showed #RIPKirk trending among Vancouver Canucks fans with one man specifically asking Canucks fans to tweet a farewell to his father "Kirk", who had "just passed away". It turns out it's either a hoax or just someone sharing the same same name, not the guy featured wearing the team's beautiful 1985-1997 black uniform on card #16 from Donruss' 1995-96 Donruss set:

You might not be able to see it, but Kirk McLean signed it for me in fading black sharpie via snail mail to the Canucks a few years ago. I was a Brian's man myself, but I'm hit with a bit of nostalgia looking at those Vaughn pads and glove (I could do without the brown blocker).

McLean to me is part of the trifecta of Best Canucks Goalies with Roberto Luongo and Daniel Bouchard, not quite the Hall Of Famer Luongo was, but a two-time Vezina nominee nonetheless, the guy who stopped 52 shots in Game 1 of the 1994 Stanley Cup Final to lead Vancouver to a 3-2 win over destiny's New York Rangers.

He won the Molson Cup (most Three Stars selections) honours three times at a time when Pavel Bure and Trevor Linden were on the team, which says a lot about the weight he carried on the ice. He's also participated in the 1990 and 1992 All-Star Games and played for Team Canada at the 1990 World Championships, finishing in fourth place.

In ten and a half years in Vancouver, he got to write a lot of the team's record book, and most of the enviable ones (wins, shutouts) were beaten by Luongo in some 70 fewer games, but he still has those for games played, playoff games played (68 vs 64), playoff wins (34 vs 32) and losses.

he's also played for the New Jersey Devils, Florida Panthers and New York Rangers, but he'll always be Vancouver's Goalie In Black to me. With this regular-sized card, he knocks Luongo's 4x6 picture off my Canucks Numbers Project for #1.

Maxime Fortunus Autographed Card

Does racism exist in hockey? Of course it does, because it still exists in the world.

I was in a special bubble growing up, playing hockey in the NDG district of Montréal where there was at least one girl and four people of colour on every team in every category in our neighbourhood until - and including - Midget. It wasn't by design or by some sort special program - we all grew up loving and playing hockey, and there were enough of all of us to fill two A-level and two B-level "elite" teams and usually a handful to eight C-level "house league" teams per category (from Novice to Atom to Pee-wee to Bantam to Midget) and, statistically, the proportions were often relatively the same at all levels on all teams. It represented our neighbourhood, as did the fact that half the teams were French-speaking and the other half had English as a common language.

As a matter of fact, as most things Montréal, language was a larger factor of discontent, fighting and favouritism than skin colour or gender.

Were insulting words ever said? Absolutely. Until Pee-Wee at least, when folks on both sides start realizing the meaning - both from the person saying it and the person receiving it. A person of Indian descent getting called "Paki" finds it ridiculous until the "all you Brown people are the same category of not welcome" starts kicking in, and the playfulness of an insult stops being funny when the other side gets hurt more than intended. And almost everyone was a target of slurs at some point, from the Francophones ("Frog", "Pepper", "Pepsi") to Blacks to Indians to girls to guys who look more "effeminate" to Indigenous peoples... even straight, "regular" white Anglo-Saxon Canadian males ("Squareheads", "Blokes").

Starting at the Pee-Wee level, ages 12-13-14 (depending on date of birth), people learn to not say hurtful things to people they care about, and eventually we'd just start hearing it more from kids from poorer neighbourhoods, and we'd use it as a rallying point. One of our teams would usually finish in the top-5 of any province-wide end-of-season ranking, and would usually medal in tournaments, even when icing just half a team because said tournament was played in the daytime on a school day, or all day during the Sabbath:

After Midget came the LHJMQ. Girls were no longer part of the equation, but I'm of that generation that produced elite goaltending (Jean-Sébastien Giguère, José Theodore, Roberto Luongo) and tough guys, a lot of them being people of colour (Jason Doig, Peter Worrell, Donald Brashear, Georges Laraque, Craig Martin, Francis Bouillon, Jason Downey). Laraque spoke eloquently (as usual) about the pains he endured as a child climbing up the ranks.

All of this is to say that I'm just a little bit stunned by Akim Aliu's recollection of events that happened in the AHL. Not that it happened at all, but that it happened in the third-best hockey league in the world. You'd think the kind of language used would have been weeded out by encountering other human beings as Bill Peters would have climbed the ranks from Amateur to Juniors to the pros. You'd think someone would have told him it's wrong, would have stood up to him, would have been in a position to threaten his job at some point.

But more than the language, you'd think the Omertà would not have been strong enough to allow for Aliu's demotion to the ECHL simply for standing up to him. And that's one of the major problems with the way the AHL management teams are set up: usually, the AHL team's GM is either the parent team's GM or their assistant-GM, meaning they oversee player personnel and decisions, but from the main offices in the parent team's building, 90% of the time, when what would be required is a continuous presence with the team, to feel its pulse, to not rely on one person's opinion regarding not just the makeup of the team and asset management, but also possibly the player's ability to deliver and become the best he can be - either for the team or for someone else via asset exchange.

Since players are the "product", they should be cherished and nourished to become the best they can be by being put in the best situation for them. Minor-league coaches are only there for their development. Sure, they may eventually earn a promotion... if they succeed at developing impactful players. There should be no other criteria, or goal.

Which brings me to Maxime Fortunus. He's five years younger than me, so I never got to play with him, and I've had all of two minutes of interactions with him in my life. I don't know if there is a reason beyond size and perhaps defensive zone lapses that made him go undrafted or limited him to 9 NHL games, but I know he makes a really good pass and has a booming shot, and I know he wore an "A" on his chest with the Manitoba Moose and the captain's "C" with the Texas Stars, so he at least was a respected presence in an AHL locker room. And I've seen Aliu play, and there is no on-ice reason why the former first-rounder could not have at least been the type of guy who is an AHL star like Fortunus. For God's sake, he's still practising full-time in Toronto in the hopes that an NHL team will call, he knows he's skilled enough.

And, hey, Fortunus left a spot open, as he's now playing in Germany, for the Fischtown Pinguins. Here's a card from his first season with the Texas Stars on card #11 from the 2010-11 Choice team set by Choice Sports Cards:

It shows him wearing the team's white (home) uniform; he signed it in blue sharpie in 2015 or 2016, adding his uniform number (18) to his signature.

Joe Thornton Jersey Card

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

"Jumbo" Joe Thornton will be back with the Sharks this coming season, outlasting "Little" Joe Pavelski (now with the Dallas Stars), as he signed a $2M, one-year deal earlier today. It was inevitable: if he were to continue playing, it would and could only have been with the Sharks, who had a roster spot conveniently still open for him.

At this point of his career, at age 40, he should find his rightful place centering the third line behind the younger Tomas Hertl and Logan Couture and, although he posted 51 points in 73 games in 2018-19, it would be foolish if not unfair to expect more than 40 points from him in that role. I'd also expect him to miss 10-15 games from the nagging pain of injuries past and just to get some rest on  a few back-to-back games.

I still cheer for him never to win a Stanley Cup, but there is no denying that he - along with, say, Jason Spezza, Sidney Crosby, Andrei Markov and Nicklas Lidstrom - is one of the best playmakers of his generation and, as such, is pretty much a lock for the Hall Of Fame, whether I like it or not.

There will be those who will remind the rest of us that he has always failed to lead a team to a championship, winning gold medals with Team Canada riding other players' coattails, from the 1997 World Juniors (Boyd Devereaux, Marc Denis) to the 2004 World Cup (Vincent Lecavalier, Joe Sakic) to the 2010 Olympics (Roberto Luongo, Jonathan Toews, Jarome Iginla, Shea Weber) and the 2016 World Cup (Sidney Crosby, Brad Marchand, Patrice Bergeron, Toews).

But as leader of the 2001 World Championship squad? Fifth place.

As captain of the Sharks and Boston Bruins? Nada.

He will probably top the 1500-point mark this year and he has a reasonable shot at Gordie Howe's games played record if he plays for two more seasons after that, but apart from the 2005-06 Art Ross and Hart trophies, winning in the NHL has eluded him.

And yet, he's a three-time 100-point performer - and one of those times came in 2002-03, near the end of the Dead Puck Era. That is quite the accomplishment.

Here he is as I will likely remember him best, wearing the captain's "C" for the Sharks, in one of their many different teal (now-home) uniforms:

It's card #GJ-JT from Upper Deck's 2014-15 Series 1 set and UD Game Jersey sub-set, and features a white game-worn jersey swatch that is from either the Sharks' or the Bruins' white uniforms.

Anton Stralman Autographed Card

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One of the more puzzling moves this summer was the Florida Panthers signing defenseman Anton Stralman - to a three-year deal averaging $5.5M per, no less - when there were clear signs he has been regressing.

After all, the 33-yar-old missed 35 games in 2018-19 due to injury, and you would need to add his points total of the past two years (6 goals, 29 assists, 35 points in 127 games) to equate his final prime season (9 goals 25 assists and 34 points in 73 games in 2015-16). His possession metrics were also under 50% for only the second time in his twelve-year career, despite playing on one of the best teams of all time, the record-breaking Tampa Bay Lightning (63 regular-season wins). His plus/minus was also fifth on the team at +12, way behind his replacement, 21-year-old Erik Cernak (+25), and even farther from team leader Ryan McDonagh (+38).

A better contract would have had him at $4M a year for no more than two years, which would have better represented what he can do and how long he can do it for on the cap, allowing GM Dale Tallon more flexibility in tweaking the roster if needed, managing fan expectations, and making new head coach Joel Quenneville's job easier, too, by not having reporters raise uncomfortable questions when he's parked on the third pairing or even in the stands.

There is no way that current-day Stralman can aspire to dethrone any of the Panthers' top three defensemen (Mike Matheson, Aaron Ekblad and Keith Yandle) in total ice time, although turnover machine Yandle could benefit from seeing his five-on-five minutes diminish; then again, Yandle is the only one in that group who is a lefty. Matheson, Ekblad and Stralman all shoot right-handed. Ruh-roh.

There is also the "force of habit" factor... 2019-20 will be the first time Stralman will be playing in red. Whether it's for Team Sweden, the Toronto Maple Leafs, Columbus Blue Jackets, New York Rangers or the Bolts, he's always just worn blue.

Speaking of which, he's a card from his days in Manhattan, wearing the Rangers' white (now-away) uniform on card #291 from Upper Deck's 2014-15 O-Pee-Chee set:

He signed it in blue sharpie during the 2015 playoffs when the Bolts defeated the Montréal Canadiens.

All that being said, regardless of his cap hit and how troublesome it will be in Year Three, he is probably an upgrade over what they had on the third pairing. Sergei Bobrovsky is a definite upgrade over an aging, injured and now retired Roberto Luongo. Quenneville is one of the three best coaches in the NHL - another upgrade. The Cats already boasted a solid attack and core. After missing the postseason in six of the last eight seasons (with both playoff berths being division-winning teams), they are a good bet to enter the Spring Dance in April.

Curtis McElhinney Autographed Card

Curtis McElhinney is the epitome of a journeyman goaltender; when he signed with the Tampa Bay Lightning on July 1st, the Bolts became his eighth NHL team since first suiting up in 2007-08 with the Calgary Flames.

He's also played for (in order of most recent) the Carolina Hurricanes, Toronto Maple Leafs, Columbus Blue Jackets, Ottawa Senators, Phoenix Coyotes, and Anaheim Ducks.

And yet, my first thought when he signed wasn't about potential McElhinney fans and family having to shell out money for yet another jersey with his name on the back but more about how many teams missed their opportunity to improve themselves by adding him this summer.

The Coyotes and Ducks are set in nets, but the Canes could have used him again, as could the Leafs and Flames - he'd be better options than those currently slotted in the #2 spot on all three teams; he'd be a known quantity that's safer than the unknowns for both the Jackets and Sens; he'd be a better option for teams like the Montréal Canadiens, and a team like the Florida Panthers, having just moved on from both Roberto Luongo and James Reimer and signed Sergei Bobrovsky, could have left youngster Samuel Montembeault acquire some reps in the AHL instead of sitting on a NHL bench until the team's 2019 first-round draft pick Spencer Knight is himself ready to surpass him.

Why him, you might ask if you aren't of the hockey nerd brethren? Well, he just finished the playoffs with a .930 save percentage and 2.30 GAA on a Canes team that surprisingly reached the semi-final; before that, he'd posted an 11-5-1 record, .934 save percentage and 2.14 GAA in 18 games in Toronto, and save for a poor 2015-16 in Columbus, had some of the best backup stats in the entire NHL since the 2011-12 season (granted he only played two games that year).

Here he is with the Flames, on card #31 from Upper Deck's 2007-08 Rookie Boxed Set / Rookie Class set:

He was already 24 when he posed for that picture in Calgary's red (now-home) uniform. He signed the card in blue sharpie while playing for the Leafs, so between 2016 and 2018.

Ryan Strome Autographed Card

When historians sit down to write the story of the 2018-19 hockey season, a few story lines will stand out:

- It's the year the Columbus Blue Jackets went all-in.
- It's the year Shea Weber started noticeably regressing.
- It's the year Roberto Luongo's injuries became a bigger story than his on-ice performances.
- The Tampa Bay Lightning's regular-season domination.
- Nikita Kucherov joined the "best player" conversation.
- The CWHL announced it was ceasing its operations, just a week after the Calgary Inferno beat the Montréal Canadiennes in the Clarkson Cup Final.
- The Chicago Blackhawks' offense finally retained (Alex DeBrincat) and acquired (Dylan Strome) offensive talent instead of trading it away (Teuvo Teravainen).
- The Ottawa Senators and Edmonton Oilers redefined "rock bottom".

That last point is where I want to look to shed yet another light on how bad GM Peter Chiarelli's tenure was, via oft-maligned former 5th overall (2011, New York Islanders) draft pick Ryan Strome.

After four seasons of Juniors hockey, Strome finished the 2012-13 season in the AHL (7 points in 10 games), and spent the following year bouncing up and down between the Isles and the Bridgeport Sound Tigers before posting a 50-point season on Long Island in 2014-15.

After two sub-par seasons in the 30-point range, Chiarelli acquired his services in exchange for Jordan Eberle, a move that was supposed to be lateral in terms of offensive production (it was thought that playing alongside either Connor McDavid or Leon Draisaitl or Ryan Nugent-Hopkins would re-launch Strome), at half of Eberle's salary for a few couple of seasons, as Strome is younger.

Unfortunately, Strome was only able to put up 36 points in 100 games over a season and change in Edmonton, prompting them to send him packing to the New York Rangers in exchange for Ryan Spooner, a player they would put on waivers just a few months later.

In Manhattan, Strome has put up 31 points in 60 games, a 42-point pro-rated production on an entire season, which is an improvement, particularly considering the Rangers are in full "rebuild" mode, although there is concern that his luck may run out at some point, as his underlying numbers are unsustainable.

The Rangers are in fairly good hands for their rebuild, with young veterans Mika Zibanejad (25 years old) and Chris Kreider (27) leading a pack comprised of Pavel Buchnevich (23), Jimmy Vesey (25), Brady Skjei (24), Vladislav Namestnikov (25), Filip Chytil (18), Brendan Lemieux (22), Fredrik Claesson (25) and goalie Alexandar Georgiev (22). Add a lucky middle-of-the-pack first-rounder or two, or a top-three pick in the next couple of years and you've got yourself a team that's fighting for the playoffs again.

Where does Strome fit in there? Well, he may not, unless he keeps producing. His brother Dylan's turning his career around in Chicago, though, so everything's still possible.

Here is Ryan playing for the OHL's Niagara IceDogs:

It's card #69 from In The Game's 2012-13 Heroes And Prospects set, which he signed in blue sharpie last December.

Jonathan Huberdeau: Two Autographed Cards

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There were rumblings around the trade deadline that the Florida Panthers were shopping young star forward Jonathan Huberdeau, the third overall pick of the 2011 draft. That was just an invention from TSN's Frank Seravalli, based on nothing but the Cats' interest in the Columbus Blue Jackets' twin free agents-to-be, Artemi Panarin and Sergei Bobrovsky, whom they could add to their roster this summer without giving away any assets whatsoever, let alone a point-per-game responsible two-way forward who is just still 25 years old.

Indeed, Huberdeau and Aleksander Barkov have been the two locomotives running the Panthers' offense for the past few years and no GM in their right mind would even consider making a trade like that, let alone Dale Tallon, who is now in his second patient rebuild of the team he constructed into a division champion three years ago only to see his successor Tom Rowe destroy it in a single summer.

Huberdeau has not let himself be bothered by such rumours and currently stands at 22 goals, 52 assists and 74 points in 69 games and was just named the NHL's First Star Of The Week with 9 points in 4 games.

The 2012-13 Calder Trophy winner now sports an "A" on his jersey, demonstrating how important he is to the team's young leadership core, with captain Barkov, defenseman Aaron Ekblad (still just 22!), Vincent Trocheck and Frank Vatrano, as well as veterans Roberto Luongo, Evegeny Dadonov and Keith Yandle, not to mention a certain Mike Hoffman, if he can keep out of trouble.

Of course, Luongo's nearing retirement (or a buyout, which would actually affect the Vancouver Canucks, not Florida), and I don't see a goalie in the system ready to pick up the mantle, so the Bobrovsky rumours may very well be founded - and all teams should be going after Panarin, possibly the best in-his-prime impactful free agent of all time, on par with Steven Stamkos a few years back and ahead of John Tavares last summer. But those two need to be added to a roster that includes Huberdeau, Barkov and Trocheck, not replace any of them.

Huberdeau was in Montréal in January, signing two cards for me in blue sharpie (with his number, 11, tagged at the end); first, showing him in the team's best-looking red uniform ever (with the team's 20th anniversary patch on the chest) is card #198 from Upper Deck's 2014-15 O-Pee-Chee set:

There is also the matching white (away) uniform from the same era, from Upper Deck's 2015-16 Series 2 set (card #337 in the series):

In terms of white uniforms, I would classify this one as tied for second with the current one, but I preferred the team's original digs. There was something about that design with the horizontal arm stripes that just worked well in white.

Bob Sweeney Autograph Card

The 1990s weren't kind to the New York Islanders, as GM Mike Milbury traded away an entire roster of first-round draft picks and quality role players like defensemen Vladimir Malakhov, Zdeno Chara, Wade Redden, Bryan Berard, Eric Brewer, Darius Kasparaitis, Scott Lachance and Bryan McCabe; Olympic goaltenders Roberto Luongo and Tommy Salo; and forwards Olli Jokinen, Todd Bertuzzi, Tim Connolly, Jean-Pierre Dumont, Raffi Torres, and the second overall draft pick from 2001 which became 100-point center Jason Spezza.

That's a pretty impressive cast to just send away at the four corners of the NHL. It was as if Milbury, a Boston native, was still trying to work for the Boston Bruins despite their having fired him four years prior; he single-handedly ran a once-dynastic franchise to the ground for a full decade.

Another Bostonian who played for his hometown Bruins for a long time and ended up with the Isles in the mid-1990s was Bob Sweeney, seen here wearing the infamous "Fisherman" jersey (albeit with the logo airbrushed out because of copyright issues), on the signed insert version of card #26 (therefore known as S26) from Upper Deck's 1995-96 Be A Player set:

He's fighting for rink real estate with a Pittsburgh Penguins player - I want to say Chris Wells, but I might be wrong.

The 1995-96 season was Sweeney's last in the NHL, split between the Isles and the Calgary Flames. He then spent one year in the IHL with the Québec Rafales before spending five seasons in the German League (DEL).

Despite what some folks will have you believe, the present-day Islanders have a good, balanced team (as long as John Tavares remains with them), a work of art and patience built by a savvy, smart and bold GM in Garth Snow, who may have been handed the job in a bizarre manner (slotted in as Rick DiPietro's backup, owner Charles Wang had a talk with him and realized he had detailed knowledge of every team's players, systems and coaches, and ideas on how to make all of them better, Isles included), but the reason he did replace Neil Smith was because he basically delivered a better interview and had better knowledge of current-day players than Smith, who'd been away from the day-to-day operations of running a team for six years.

I believe in Snow, and I believe Snow has built a good enough team to enter the playoffs as the East's First Wild Card team, ahead of the New York Rangers and last year's Atlantic Division-leading Montréal Canadiens.

Martin Brodeur Net Fusions Card

Hopefully, I'm not walking down a dangerous path by making an exception for Martin Brodeur - something I've accused the NHL of doing time and time again by awarding him four Vezina trophies when he deserved one at best - by featuring him on a card that is neither signed nor one including a swatch/patch of some kind.

Instead, the Glove-Side Net-Fusions card features a pretend glove netting filling the space between the goal posts:

That's card #12 from Pacific's 2000-01 Paramount set, showing him wearing the New Jersey Devils' red (then-away) uniform. I've seen it selling for $12-15 on Ebay, however, and it's tempting to not shit on it too much so I can pass it on to someone else.

Now you've heard me attack his Vezina Trophy record, but one thing that led to those awards as well as his three Stanley Cups was the Devils' defensive system devised by Jacques Lemaire, which was so effective that not only did it bring about the Dead Puck Era, but gave the team five Jennings trophies, which reward the goalie(s) from the team with the lowest goals-against average - which he's shared with the likes of teammate Mike Dunham but also Philadelphia Flyers goalies Roman Cechmanek and Robert Esche. Ties in this category are uncommon but do happen, as was the case with the Montréal Canadiens (Carey Price) and Chicago Blackhawks (Corey Crawford) sharing it in 2014-15.

Is Brodeur Hall Of Fame material? Of course he is.

Should he be considered on the same plane as Dominik Hasek and Patrick Roy in his era, and Terry Sawchuk, Jacques Plante, Georges Vezina, Ken Dryden or Tony Esposito in the broader spectrum of NHL history? Absolutely not. He did not dominate at any point, hidden between the defensive fortress of Scott Stevens and Ken Daneyko, although he was the best at moving the puck in his time, even forcing the NHL to change its rules bout goaltenders leaving the crease to play the puck. But as far as him being the stopping force that brought his team to the promised land, despite three Cups, he has no Conn Smythe to his name; also, the only time he faced Roy in a Final, he lost while watching Roy get the shut out, which should have been the ultimate mic drop.

And with Team Canada, he was sad to look at in the 2010 Olympics when Roberto Luongo was forced to take over.