Chad Kilger Autograph Card

Draft day came and went, and so did July 1st. And there were still hockey pundits who justified a draft position or salary not on performance but on a mix of potential and size, and some ability - Benoît Pouliot's deal with the Edmonton Oilers comes to mind.

Pouliot had been a fourth-overall pick in 2005. Alexandre Volchkov was chosen fourth in 1996. As were Bryan Allen in 1998, Pavel Brendl in 1999, Rostislav Klesla in 2000, and Nikolai Zherdev in 2003. Going further back, Jason Bonsignore in 1994, Todd Warriner in 1992, and Darrin Shannon in 1988. Not all of them were the best choice, in retrospect.

Which brings me to the fourth pick of 1995, Chad Kilger. As of four years ago, he was the most popular fireman in all of Cornwall, Ontario, and would have been even without his career 714 NHL games and time spent playing for four different Canadian NHL teams (the Winnipeg Jets, Oilers, Montréal Canadiens, and Toronto Maple Leafs), if only because his father was a career politician in the city.

I don't have anything new to report, just came across this card of his when unpacking:

It shows him wearing the Anaheim Mighty Ducks' white (home) uniform, sporting #95 for the simple reason that it was at the draft and they'd just picked him. It's from Upper Deck's 1995-96 Be A Player set (card #S167, meaning it is the signed insert version of card #167 - which is part of the Rookie Quotebook sub-set - and is autographed on-card in thin black sharpie). They don't show the team's logo (nor reference it in any way) for the simple fact that while they may have had the NHLPA's permission to use photos of their players, they hadn't secure an NHL copyright.

His signature includes his jersey number with the Kingston Frontenacs (18), his junior team prior to being drafted.

Funny thing: as I was researching for news to use in this post, I came across this article about possible corruption and wrong-doings regarding his hiring as a fireman... which uses my card from my post 4 years ago without crediting me, who got the autograph in person (same over-cropped bottom, too):

Mikhail Grigorenko Rookie Fabric Card

Every hockey fanatic in Québec knows a little about the Junior leagues, and just like Alexander Radulov five years before him, Mikhail Grigorenko tore it up playing for Patrick Roy on the Québec Remparts.

As a player, Roy was more than just the most ''clutch'' player of all time and perhaps the best goalie as well - he was also a passionate, fiery genius who understood every aspect of a game and could explain them to each of his teammates.

When he made the switch to coaching, he started with teenagers and young adults so as to have clean slates to work with, and it didn't take long before he proved he could develop pretty gifted ones into great offensive weapons - Radulov and Grigorenko chief among them. As can be attested by Radulov's last half-season with the Nashville Predators, though, he does not harness his studs, though, so it's up to them to develop the right amount of maturity to become professionals and young adults off the ice.

Grigorenko was in a bit of a bind last season, as he was way too good for Juniors and, at 19 years old, too old to play with teenagers. He wasn't allowed to play in the AHL because of CHL rules, so his only other option on the continent was with the Buffalo Sabres, who had drafted him 12th overall in 2012 - a steal considering he was the third-ranked North American skater, but the fact that he's Russian and ''has that KHL option'' (as if Canadians and Americans didn't) no doubt played a role in his dropping a few spots.

Unfortunately for everyone involved, the Sabres were awful, poorly managed, no environment to nurture a young player in, always losing, and in shambles, and they kept him with the team for far too long, making it seem like a punishment when he did end up getting sent to Québec.

And don't let his NHL statistics (8 points in 43 games) fool you, when this guy is on the ice, the puck goes in the opposing team's net. All the time. With 47 points and 4 medals (three bronze and one silver) in 33 games representing Russia five times in Juniors, Grigorenko has faced the best players in his age range and embarrassed them on a consistent basis. His statistics with the Remparts are also awe-inspiring: 40 goals and 85 points in 59 games in his rookie season; 30 goals and 54 points in 33 games in his sophomore year which ended with his spending the locked-out half-season in the NHL; and last year, which many observers called ''disappointing'', 15 goals and 39 points in 23 games, as a 19-year old - nearly two points a game!

He will end up being a #1 center in the NHL, and probably within three years. He just turned 20, is 6'3'' and 200 pounds, is creative with the puck, plays a terrific defensive game for a guy his age (thanks to Roy's tremendous coaching), and can shoot, deke and pass with the same level of dexterity.

He knows he's good, though, so he may still slack off for a game or two once in a while, but when he does find the maturity to want to be the best at all times, he will become unstoppable even at the NHL level.

Also, if the negotiations between the Colorado Avalanche and Ryan O'Reilly turn (even more) sour, I can see these guys getting traded for one another to reunite the former master-and-student team. In the meantime, though, Quebecers get to watch Grigorenko suit up for the Sabres and face the Montréal Canadiens and Ottawa Senators five times each per year, so it's almost like he never left the province.

Speaking of which, here's a card where he's sporting Buffalo's recent blue (home) uniform, a bit of a throwback to their old 1970s and 1980s uniforms, but with useless piping and even more useless jersey number on the chest; it's from Upper Deck's 2013-14 SP Game-Used Edition card (#RF-MG of the Rookie Fabrics sub-set), featuring a big blue swatch of a jersey worn in a photo shoot:

Jarome Iginla Jersey Card

Well, not only did my former favourite captain Jarome Iginla sign with the Colorado Avalanche on July 1st, he also believes it's the team that will lead him to the Stanley Cup; after almost doing it with the Calgary Flames when he was their undisputed leader and then failing as a mercenary with both the Pittsburgh Penguins and Boston Bruins, I'm not sure what that means for the Avs exactly; I'm also not convinced he alone can make up for losing Paul Stastny, but we'll see three years from now. I truly hope so, both for him and the Avs organization, and for Patrick Roy and Joe Sakic as managers.

As I mentioned in May, his team wins are impressive and lack just one Cup, as he has just about everything else: two Memorial Cups with the Kamloops Blazers, and many gold medals with Team Canada, including at the World Juniors (1996, where he was also the tournament's MVP), World Championships (1997), World Cup (2004) and Olympics (2002 and 2010).

He would also have made the Olympic team in 2014 if I'd been in charge, as this would have been my line-up:

Rick Nash - Jonathan Toews (captain) - Jeff Carter
Jamie Benn - Sidney Crosby - Martin St. Louis
John Tavares - Ryan Getzlaf - Corey Perry
Matt Duchene - Patrice Bergeron - Jarome Iginla (alternate)
(James Neal - Jason Spezza / Mike Richards as reserves)

Duncan Keith - Drew Doughty (alternate)
Marc-Édouard Vlasic - Shea Weber
Jay Bouwmeester - P.K. Subban
(Alex Pietrangelo - Brent Seabrook as reserves)

Roberto Luongo - Corey Crawford (Mike Smith as reserve)

(Too many centers? Sure. Also: no Leafs or Jets. And no Sharks attackers. No perennial chokers.)

But not just the consummate leader and team player, Iginla is also a 500-goal, 1200-point man with a ton of NHL hardware who already has a seat reserved as a first-ballot Hall Of Famer when he retires, and will likely see his number retired by the Flames the minute he does. He's already their career leader for goals, points and games played, and is second only to Al MacInnis in assists. Between 1998 and 2008, only Jaromir Jagr scored more goals than he did in the whole league.

I thought I had posted this card of his earlier, but it seems not; it's from Fleer's 2005-06 Fleer Ultra set by Upper Deck, and is #DMJ-JI of the Difference Makers sub-set, with an awesome 2-colour jersey swatch possibly from the sleeve of the Flames' white uniform, pictured on the front of the card:

He's sporting the captain's 'C', a sight I was so used to seeing that he looks weird without it on all of his new teams.

Jessie Hester Autographed Card

When I was a kid, and also during my teenage years, I spent a lot of time in Florida in the summer, at least a couple of weeks per year. I was mostly a baseball fan in the summer (I have always been all-hockey in winter) and took the opportunity to buy a lot of baseball cards, such as Topps, Score and Donruss, because in Canada at the time, all I had access to were from the O-Pee-Chee brand.

I knew a bit about (American) football, I watched the Super Bowl and was a huge Joe Montana and San Francisco 49ers fan, but didn't know much about the other teams. But because he always made it back to his native Belle Glade in the off-season and always had a soft spot for trying to help kids out of the ghetto, my path crossed that of Jessie Hester in 1993 or 1994, as he had come to a shopping mall near my usual quarters near Fort Lauderdale (an hour's drive south-east from Belle Glade) to give some sort of conference/clinic about the importance of education and not just escaping the 'hood, but trying to improve it from within by going back while successful and giving the rest of the community a sense of hope, and people to look up to other than gangs.

When you're 14 or 15, any public figure - and especially athletes and musicians, your heroes - can strike you with an important message; Hester may not have impressed me as much as Tom Draper, but he became one of my favourite wide receivers nonetheless because he showed us the Man behind the athlete that day.

Hester may not be Hall Of Fame material, but he was a first-round pick of the Los Angeles Raiders in 1985, with whom he had two 600-plus-yard seasons to begin his career in 1985 and 1986; he would have five more from 1990 to 1994, including a career-high 924 for the Indianapolis Colts in 1990, and would finish with 5830 in a 10-year career, along with 29 touchdowns, three in each of his final seasons as played for the Los Angeles/St. Louis Rams (the team moved between his two seasons with them).

When he retired, he moved back to his home town on a permanent basis, and he coached his alma mater for three seasons before getting fired in 2010. You can read about the impact he had on the individual kids he coached in this excerpt from Bryan Mealer's Muck City: Winning and Losing in Football's Forgotten Town.

I didn't have a card on me when I attended Hester's speech, but one guy was selling them at a buck apiece, so I grabbed this one from Fleer's 1992 Fleer set (card #165), showing him in the Colts' white (away) uniform, which he signed in thick blue sharpie, with his uniform number (84) tagged at the end:

Paul Stastny Jersey Card

Arguably the biggest-impact signing on July 1st, Paul Stastny left the Colorado Avalanche for the St. Louis Blues, another organization his father - Hall Of Famer Peter Stastny, the highest-scoring player of the 1980s not named Wayne Gretzky - played for, and the city where Paul grew up.

There will always be comparisons between Paul and his father, but that's because he can take them. He is a leader (he wore the 'A' on his jersey in Colorado and for Team USA, who he also captained to a bronze medal  at the 2013 World Championships), is a tremendous playmaker who can also score, has a terrific all-around game and is responsible defensively. He is also disciplined and can handle first-unit powerplay and penalty-killing unit tasks, and would be comfortable playing any role on any team, though by default, he'd probably be the #1 center on at least 26 NHL teams, as he will be with the Blues.

With the salary cap just under $70M this season and on the rise for the next three, signing Stastny to a 4-year deal paying him $7M per is a steal, because he automatically becomes the team's best player, paid at a little more than 10% of the cap, then his cap hit percentage diminishes, possibly ending at around 8.5%, which is ideal for your top forward, who would play close to 22 minutes per game while making everyone around him better.

This rises the Blues' stock close to the level of the Los Angeles Kings and Chicago Blackhawks, in my opinion, provided Brian Elliott and Jake Allen have career years; even if they don't, they are not a downgrade from Ryan Miller at this stage of his career; they can stop 91% of the shots they face, he couldn't. Head coach Ken Hitchcock, for one, believes the intangibles could stack up well for his team. Also, it'll be much easier to find a capable goalie if it doesn't work or in case of injury at the trade deadline, because after the top-three of Jonathan Quick, Henrik Lundqvist and Pekka Rinne, the NHL is comprised of 15 goalies who are approximately at the same level, and 25 to 35 more who are just one notch under those guys; there has never been a more even nor better crop of high-quality goalies in the history of hockey, and there is only room for 30 starters in the league - and just 16 in the playoffs.

I purchased some 2013-14 SP Game-Used Edition boxes from Upper Deck this winter, and oddly enough was very satisfied with my pulls; I could have had them for much cheaper by purchasing them individually on Ebay, it turns out, because it seems like the players I like (except for P.K. Subban) sell for under $5 each; as a matter of fact, this Paul Stastny card, #AF-ST in the set, part of the Authentic Fabrics sub-set, often sells between $1 and $2, but I don't care:

It shows him wearing the Avs' white (away) uniform, which I liked a lot more before Reebok put piping on the chest and removed the blue lines separating the white from the burgundy; hopefully the team can revert back to its former uniforms - as many others have - soon, though I really like their current third. The big swatch on the front of the card matches the jersey on the card, which I like.

Yannick Weber Autograph Card

Yesterday afternoon, the Vancouver Canucks announced they had re-signed restricted free agent Yannick Weber, on a one-year contract paying him a little less than a million dollars. This marks the perfect time to cross off #68 off my Habs Numbers Project...

Drafted 73rd overall by the Montréal Canadiens in 2007, ahead of Alex Killorn (77th), Nick Palmieri (79th), Alec Martinez (95th), Linus Omark (97th), Matt Frattin (99th), Justin Falk (110th), Jamie Benn (129th), Jake Muzzin (141st), and Nick Bonino (173rd), he was a smart and safe pick for the Habs. He already has a better career than a lot of the players in the second round (though the Canadiens hit a home run with P.K. Subban at 43rd), and though just 25 years old, is already a two-time Olympian with Team Switzerland. He's also sported the red-and-white in three World Juniors and two World Championships.

Upon his being drafted, he moved to Canada to play for the OHL's London Knights, and helped them to a league championship. Following his career in Juniors, he was off to the AHL, where he made the All-Rookie Team and played in an All-Star Game during his two seasons with the Hamilton Bulldogs.

While still a rookie in the AHL, he played in three NHL playoff games for the Habs, registering two points (a goal and an assist); he would have to wait until 2010-11 to earn a permanent spot in Montréal, though, first as a depth player (41 games), and appearing in 60 games the following year.

It was always clear he had offensive flair, good foot speed, a fine first pass, and a booming point shot good enough to man a powerplay (and replace fellow Swiss Mark Streit in the Habs' depth chart), but it's his lack of strength along the boards - particularly in his own zone - and the fact that the Canadiens had a lot of players of the same type that ultimately drove the team to not re-sign him, paving the way for the Canucks to do so last summer.

Because he isn't all that physical, he was often in John Tortorella's doghouse and only appeared in 49 Canucks games, scoring 6 goals and tallying 10 points. However, I see a shift in play looming in the West, and his talents will likely be very sought-after soon, either in Vancouver or elsewhere.

This card, showing him wearing the Habs' red (home) uniform, is from Upper Deck's 2010-11 Artifacts set, and is card #AF-YW, part of the Autofacts sub-set. It has a sticker autograph, signed in blue sharpie:

Alex Kovalev Quad Jersey Card

A story I deliberately skipped over yesterday when featuring this card of Eric Brewer was the fact that at age 41, after a series of injuries brought an end to his dream of playing until the age of 50, Alex Kovalev officially retired.

In the next few weeks, months, and perhaps even years, you will read and hear many conflicting things about Kovalev, most of them true at first. Then, as with every legend, both sides will embellish their stories and make them bigger and bigger until he is inevitably dubbed Hockey's Dr. Jeckyll.

I'll say this, right now: did he have a tendency to take two or three nights off per week? Short answer: yes. In fact, though, the more honest answer would be this: never in important games, never in the playoffs, never when sporting a letter (be it the captain's 'C' or the alternate's 'A') on his chest, and never in front of an adoring hometown crowd cheering him on. And rarely when he could take center stage.

Which led to a Stanley Cup in 1994 with the New York Rangers, playing on Mark Messier's line in his second NHL season; a 44-goal and 95-point season with the Pittsburgh Penguins in 2000-01, prompting none other than Mario Lemieux to claim he had the ''best hands he'd ever seen'', from a guy who may have been the most talented player ever to play and who played alongside Wayne Gretzky, Jaromir Jagr, Joe Sakic, and Sidney Crosby.

But some of his greatest feats came while he was a member of the Montréal Canadiens. His 10 points in 11 playoff games when he was first traded to the team started a fiery romance with the Montréal faithful that struck him deeply. And though he had a down year after his favourite center - Mike Ribeiro - was traded, once he found and learned to appreciate everything Tomas Plekanec could do, he was back on track, with a 35-goal, 84-point season. He was the best forward at the 2005 World Championships - from an especially deep talent pool considering the NHL was locked out and every country could send its best players to play.

He made the playoffs 4 times with the Habs, each time producing around the point-per-game mark. But his greatest show was at the 2009 All-Star Game, played in front of his hometown crowd with 4 other Habs, captaining the Eastern All-Stars despite the team also boasting Evgeni Malkin and Alex Ovechkin, and with his 2-goal, 1-assist performance plus the game-winning goal in the shootout, he was named the MVP ahead of all the other stars.

If there was a spotlight, he wanted it to be on him, and he made it happen.

And that is why the Habs let him wear the 'C' when Saku Koivu was injured, despite never having done so before in Koivu's storied yet injury-riddled career. He wasn't just a capable leader, he wanted to be the guy that was counted upon, he took pride in leading the way, and he wouldn't take a night off - despite his reputation - if he knew he was the go-to guy. In that respect, he was the ultimate end-of-communism-era Russian, military-like in his sense of duty, pride and determination.

When it comes to sheer talent, pure ability, he was in the top-5 of the last 20 years.

Look at this goal, scored without a helmet, Guy Lafleur-style:

And here's a top-10 that I kind of disagree with, as some of the middle positions aren't as spectacular as a few of his other goals, but added to the one above gives a great idea of the extent to which he could do as he pleased in all aspects of puck control:

But he also had a mean streak, and recognized when to step the anger in his game up against the right opponents, as seen here taking revenge for an intentional sucker-punch to the head from the Toronto Maple Leafs' Darcy Tucker:

All told, Kovalev retires with Olympic gold (1992) and bronze (2002), World Juniors gold (1992), World Championships bronze (2005), a Stanley Cup and 100 career playoff points, over 1000 regular-season points on 430 goals and 599 assists, having scored 100 goals for three separate teams, 1304 penalty minutes in 1316 games, three All-Star Games (and one MVP title), the World Championships' ''best forward'' title for 2005, and as the first Russian ever chosen in the first round of an NHL draft.

He retires following a 22-goal and 52-point season in 44 games in Switzerland. Not too shabby.

And I have a great card to commemorate a great player, from Upper Deck's 2008-09 Black Diamond collection, card #BDJ-KO in the set, a Quad Jerseys card with four distinct pieces of jersey - three white and one red - showing him in the Habs' classic red (home) uniform in front of a simple yet beautiful signature UD design:

I wasn't convinced at first, but he really does wear the bleu-blanc-rouge very well.

Eric Brewer Autographed Card

I started something that I never followed through with last month, and I thought today might be a good day for that. So today, for the first time since I decided to make this (yet another) Project, is an entry for my Oilers Numbers Project with the (first) representative of #2, Eric Brewer:

The card, showing him in Edmonton's 1997-2007 white (home) uniform, is from Topps' 2003-04 O-Pee-Chee set (card #197) and was signed in black sharpie after a game at the Bell Centre in November 2003. Back then, most Oilers were generous signers - I've heard the recent crop are different, and I did send some by mail that I've abandoned hope will ever get back to me, but I won't go as far as to dismiss them all anyhow.

Bewer was the New York Islanders' first-round pick in 1997 (5th overall), but it took them 89 games to send him packing to the Edmonton Oilers, where he developed into what the Beckett used to call a ''semi-star'', a player who could play in All-Star Games (he did, in 2003) but wasn't necessarily always an impact player.

He could always play himself in a position where the successes came piling in, though, as can be attested by his five gold medals playing for Team Canada (2002 Olympics, 2004 World Cup, and 2003, 2004 and 2007 World Championships). It was with them that he posted his best season, all four years in Edmonton surpassing the 20-point mark (out of seven total times he reached that milestone) and once even rating a +15, although all three other times in the minuses, for a total of -22. What the Oilers didn't like, though, was that he didn't lead by example and was always battling the team for money, holding out of training camp one time and filing for on arbitration another.

That's why they didn't do everything they could to keep him and agreed to the St. Louis Blues' wish to trade him, along with two others, for Chris Pronger. The Blues liked him enough to eventually make him their captain, though, so I guess that makes up for it.

As he was nearing free agency in 2011, though, the Blues traded him to the Tampa Bay Lightning for a prospect and a draft pick; he re-signed with Tampa for four years that summer (at a $3.8M cap hit), and has been a fixture on their blue line ever since.

Brewer is not perfect by any means, and with the quality of his shot and passes, should have 50% more points than he does; but at 6'4'' and 220 pounds, he's a towering presence in front of the net and blocks a lot of shots. Also, with his cap hit, he is double the value of teammate Matt Carle, whose cap hit is above $8M; both defenders, however, seem to get nervous handling the puck in their own end when opponents are applying pressure, as can be attested by the Montréal Canadiens' sweep of the Lightning - the only one this post-season - just a month ago.

Brian Gionta Dual-Swatch Card

One of the busiest teams during yesterday's Free Agent Frenzy that saw teams commit to over half a billion dollars (though, technically, with the option of buying out contracts, that figure could end up being just a tad over $300M) was undoubtedly the Buffalo Sabres, who traded for Josh Gorges and signed Matt Moulson, Andrej Meszaros, Cody McCormick, and the reason for my post, Brian Gionta.

Now on his third NHL team, Gionta scored 48 goals once (2005-06) and won the Stanley Cup with the New Jersey Devils in 2002-03. Signed as a free agent by the Montréal Canadiens as part of the Centennial one-year rebuild/overhaul, he helped the team reach the Conference Finals right off the bat in 2010, and again in 2014. He captained the Habs for 4 seasons, and twice came close to scoring 30 goals while in Montréal - with 28 in 61 games in 2009-10 and 29 in 82 the following year - all while being one of the the team's best penalty killers, alongside ''frequent'' linemate Tomas Plekanec - as frequent as one could play with Plekanec, who has the double-edged-sword job of playing the most minutes of all centers on the team but mostly starting off against the opposition's best lines in his own zone, usually flanked by players who need help getting going again.

Gionta was a good captain, even better than I had originally expected. I knew he was a no-nonsense guy on the ice and in the dressing room, but the way he and his wife took to this town and gave their time to various charities, took the time to meet and greet fans and answer their mail - he signed cards for me in both 2011 and 2013 - and faced the press after each game, win or lose, patiently, it all showed a lot of heart.

When Thomas Vanek arrived at the trading deadline this season, however, it relegated him to a role on the third line, and it kind of seemed like a perfect fit for him at this point in his career, at age 35, his goals-per-game and points-per-game averages in steady decline in the past five years. The Habs would probably have liked his leadership back for two seasons, to give them enough time to decide who between P.K. Subban, Max Pacioretty and Brendan Gallagher deserves to be the next captain, but the terms and money offered by the Sabres (3 years, $14M) were probably too good to pass up, coupled with the fact that his off-season residence is close to where they play, and that Gorges would be joining him. With possibly another captaincy role looming. And perhaps a third team with which to score a milestone goal, after scoring the first Devils goal in their new arena (Prudential Center) and the Canadiens' 20,000th NHL goal.

I anticipated this day would come when I purchased this card on Ebay a little over a month ago, though I expected he'd go back with the Devils if he were to leave the Habs; the card is from Panini's 2011-12 Certified set and is card #79 in the collection, just like the regular card, but is from the Mirror sub-set, of which it is the red variant; it contains not one but two swatches of game-used ''material'' (one white, one red) and is numbered #101/150:

It's a great card to add to my collection!

And I wish Mr. Gionta the best in Buffalo - except of course when playing against the Canadiens.

2 Michael Cammalleri Authentic Fabrics Jersey Cards

As a guy who tries to write a post per day - and with an impressive backlog of cards I can feature - I usually let the ''news'' around the game dictate my subject matter, but with this year's Free Agent Frenzy and the fair amount of trades that came with it, I had an abundance of choice.

In the next few days, expect posts on Paul Stastny, Jason Spezza, Brian Gionta, Jarome Iginla and a few others, and when he signs his new deal, probably P.K. Subban as well. But for the moment, I thought I could show-and-tell two Michael Cammalleri jersey cards of the same brand:

Originally a draft pick of the Los Angeles Kings (49th overall, 2001), Cammalleri scored 93 goals in his first 283 games with L.A., with a high of 34 (and 80 points) in 81 games in 2006-07. After a contract dispute, he was sent to the Calgary Flames for the last year of his contract where he was soon paired with Iginla, scoring 39 goals with 43 assists for 82 points in 81 games leading up to free agency.

He then signed with the Montréal Canadiens in time for the team's Centennial and led them to the Conference Finals in his first season, scoring 13 goals in 19 playoff games. He scored 54 goals in 170 games in parts of three seasons with the Habs, on a defensively-minded team. From that time, I have this memento, from Upper Deck's 2010-11 SP Game-Used Edition, card #AF-MC of the Authentic Fabrics sub-set, showing him in the team's classic red uniform with the alternate captain's 'A' on his chest:

It ended on a bit of a sour note in Montréal for him, getting traded to the Calgary Flames mid-game by Pierre Gauthier in the weirdest move I've seen from the usually-classy organization. All told, in parts of four seasons over two stints with the Flames, Cammalleri scored 89 goals in 216 games, the final 50 of those goals on a team where he was the lone proven first-liner. In all but 28 games in Calgary, he wore his usual #13 jersey, as can be attested by this card from the 2013-14 SP Game-Used Edition set (card ##AF-MC of the Authentic Fabrics sub-set) by UD:

He's sporting the team's red (away) uniform with the black logo, a staple since 2006 after starting out as the team's third jersey in 2003. Cammy's also worn #93 at the end of the 2011-12 season, because Olli Jokinen wore #13 at the time of the Habs-Flames trade.

Both cards feature a big, red Cammalleri game-used jersey swatch from the home uniforms; the colour suits him, so although I'm a bit surprised that he signed with the New Jersey Devils earlier today (5 years, $25M), he'll look good for sure in red and white with hints of black. I'm not surprised by the money or term he got, but that he came to the East, and not with a straight-up contender like Montréal, the Pittsburgh Penguins, the Boston Bruins, or the Philadelphia Flyers.