Mikhail Shtalenkov Autograph Card

Technically, it was supposed to come next year, but with the pre-season injuries list to the Anaheim Ducks piling on, the Edmonton Oilers have a legitimate shot at winning their division this very season - and I personally think they will.

They have an excellent mix of high-end talent (Connor McDavid, Leon Draisaitl, Cam Talbot), mid-to-high-end talent (Ryan Nugent-Hopkins, Ryan Strome), grit (Milan Lucic, Patrick Maroon, Zack Kassian, Eric Gryba), surprisingly good offensive defensemen (Oscar Klefbom, Andrej Sekera), defensive defensemen (Adam Larsson, Kris Russell), youth up front (Tyler Benson, Kailer Yamamoto, Anton Slepyshev), and youth out back (Darnell Nurse, Matt Benning, Caleb Jones, Ethan Bear), and after last season, they now have playoff experience as well, having eliminated the San Jose Sharks and pushed the Ducks to seven games.

In many ways, they remind me of the Oilers of the late 1990s, which featured the likes of Bill Guerin, Doug Weight, Mike Grier, Ryan Smyth, Josef Beranek, Roman Hamrlik, Todd Marchant, Rem Murray, Janne Niinimaa, Kelly Buchberger and Georges Laraque.

One player who made a brief appearance on those teams was Mikhail Shtalenkov, a former star for the USSR's Moscow Dynamo (1985-92, 2000-02) who went 12-17-3 with a 2.67 GAA and .896 save percentage in 34 games with the Oilers in 1998-99. He wore #35 in Edmonton, which is perfect for my Oilers Numbers Project thanks to the gold signed insert version of card #204 from In The Game's 1998-99 Be A Player set:

It shows him wearing the Oilers' beautiful dark blue (away) turn-of-the-millennium uniform, with the "oil driller" shoulder patches; it is hard-signed in thin black sharpie.

In the NHL, Shtalenkov spent most of his time with the Anaheim Mighty Ducks (five seasons), as well as parts of two seasons (19 games total) with the Phoenix Coyotes, and 19 games with the Florida Panthers, before returning to the Dynamo in 2000-01, for two seasons.

Here are his stats from the Russian SuperLeague and while representing his country, whether it was called the USSR/CCCP, the United Team, consisting of Russia, Ukraine, Kazakhstan, Belarus, Uzbekistan, and Armenia from the former Soviet Republic (1992 Olympic gold) or Team Russia (1998 Olympic silver):

From HHOF/Legends Of Hockey

It's fairly easy to see that he was better at covering his angles on the wider international ice surface than in North America, where his success was limited to the Rookie Of The Year award (Garry F. Longman Memorial Trophy) in the IHL in 1992-93...

Following his playing career, he turned to coaching. There was an odd incident in 2012 where he neglected to come home for two days after his flight landed, and his wife reported him missing...

Brian Hayward: Three Signed Sharks Cards

Remember the good old days when you could count on the San Jose Sharks to not make the playoffs? Well, according to me earlier today, things are looking bad for the boys in teal this coming season, as I see them finishing 6th in the Pacific Division.

It's not that they don't have top-level talent, they do: GM Doug Wilson has built a strong roster with good upper-end players like Logan Couture, Joe Pavelski, Brent Burns and Marc-Édouard Vlasic, who can provide an almost-elite-level 20 minutes per game, plus the 60 games of top-notch goaltending from Martin Jones. Instead, the problem lies within the team's depth and a lack of youth among their prospects, considering none of Danny O'Regan (23 years old, C, point-per-game AHLer), Julius Bergman (21, D), Antoine Bibeau (23, G), Marcus Sorensen (25, LW), or Radim Simek (25, D) are under the age of 20, and some are already in their mid-20s.

It's not as bad as the Sharks' inaugural season, mind you, when a rookie by the name of Pat Falloon, whom many (not me) see as a failed draft pick or, worse, a "bust", led the team in every offensive category with 25 goals, 34 assists and 59 points in 79 games. Those would be half-decent numbers in 2017, but they were extremely low in 1991-92. So low that he was also a -32, which was in a three-way tie (with Jayson Moore and Pat MacLeod) for fourth-worse on the team; indeed, Paul Fenton was -39, current GM and then-captain and All-Star Wilson was -38, and Bob McGill was -34.

In net, the highest save percentage was a tie between Jeff Hackett and Wade Flaherty, at .892; followed future All-Star Arturs Irbe (.868), Team Finland goalie Jarmo Myllys (.867) and three-time Jennings Trophy winner Brian Hayward, whose back gave out from all the flailing around required to stop pucks with that porous a defense (.867, in 7 games). In terms of goals-against average, it ranged from 3.84 (Hackett) to 5.02 (Myllys), with three at 4-or-more in between (Flaherty at 4.38, Irbe at 4.47 and Hayward at 4.92).

It was while injured that Hayward caught the broadcasting bug, as he would serve as colour commentator for Sharks games when he was sidelined, until he retired and the expansion Anaheim Mighty Ducks came calling and offered him to do the job for them... fives times. He declined for a while, wanting to finish his MBA at Cornell University instead.

He did eventually agree and, 23 years later, he's still there, occasionally taking on double-duties with Hockey Night In Canada and on NBC. It was during one of those double-broadcasts in the playoffs that I crossed his path at the Bell Centre, where he took a black sharpie to sign cards featuring him wearing the Sharks' inaugural uniforms.

Let's start with the white (then-home) uniform, for which all players posed with the same, generic #91 jersey, on card #59 from Upper Deck's 1991-92 Series 1 set:

For the teal (then-away) uniform, I decided to go with two cards from the Topps brand:

On the left, possibly in the middle of one of his patented two-legged pad slides, is card #436 from the 1992-93 Topps set, while the picture on the right - also known as card #60 from the 1992-93 Bowman set, of which I have an unopened box for sale or trade, if anyone is interested - is probably from a pre-game warmup. What I like on the Bowman card is that he's two years removed from asking for a trade away from the Montréal Canadiens, but is still wearing Lefebvre pads, hand-made made by then-Habs trainer Gaétan Lefebvre for Patrick Roy and other butterfly goalies. Lefebvre produced these from 1987 until roughly 1995 for close friends and their families, but had already drastically reduced production when Roy started using all-Koho equipment prior to the 1992-93 season.

Marc Denis: Two Autographed Cards

One thing we know about the Columbus Blue Jackets is that they're really good, extremely balanced, and deep at almost every position. We can add that they have a shrewd GM in Jarmo Kekalainen who is as good at signing reasonable contracts with his RFAs as he is good at winning trades, and that's without mentioning that as head scout for the Ottawa Senators and St. Louis Blues, he had the best eye for talent in the league, as he was responsible for the drafting of such stars and sleeper picks as Marian Hossa, Ray Emery, Martin Havlat, Alex Pietrangelo, T.J. Oshie, Patrik Berglund, David Perron and David Backes. I predict the Jackets will finish second in the Metropolitan Division this year and should, legitimately, be looked at to win their first playoff series in team history.

Another hockey expert I like to link to the Blue Jackets is their former #1 goalie Marc Denis, who is now the hockey analyst for TV station RDS. In my opinion, he's the best in the business. Sure, he has to say that every Carey Price save is a work of art because his network happens to own part of the Montréal Canadiens, but he is also always insightful, particularly when it comes to the tactical side of the game, as well as defensive positioning and goaltending. It helps that he was the goalie coach for the Chicoutimi Saguenéens at the turn of the decade.

Stylistically, like every Quebecer in his (and my) age range, he was a pure butterfly stopper, emulating Patrick Roy. The initial King of Butterfly Saves, Hall Of Famer Tony Esposito, once said of Denis: "(He) has one of the brightest futures in the game. He has shown the ability to dominate a contest." The year after that quote, Denis appeared in 77 games for the Jackets, setting an NHL record for most minutes played with 4511.

He signed two cards (in black sharpie) from his days in Columbus for me last season, both showing him wearing their then-home white uniform; first, here is card #33 from Upper Deck's 2000-01 Heroes set, showing him receiving shots during a pre-game warmup:

And finally, here is card #68 from UD's 2000-01 Ice set, an amazing see-through plastic card that this scan does not do justice to:

Of course, the back has the reverse of that picture to go with statistics; notice how the signature doesn't penetrate his body:

Year in and year out, Ice and Artifacts are the best-looking and most spectacular cards on the market. I have had this card for years, and I still get happy just looking at it - the autograph just adds to my pleasure.

Semyon Varlamov Dual Jersey Card

Everything went wrong for the Colorado Avalanche last season, and I predict more of the same this year, with a second-straight last-place finish. This time, though, they will even be surpassed by the Vegas Golden Knights, an expansion team that had a grand total of two players before the expansion draft in late June.

GM Joe Sakic opted to protect Semyon Varlamov instead of Calvin Pickard in a bizarre move, considering the Golden Knights were extremely unlikely to pick a 29-year-old veteran goalie with health issues who has two years left with a $5.9M cap hit when Marc-André Fleury and Petr Mrazek were also available, to say nothing of talented unproven quantities like Philipp Grubauer and Antti Raanta.

It's not like Varlamov doesn't have the tools to succeed; after all, we're talking about a former first-round draft pick (23rd overall, Washington Capitals, 2006) who once finished second in Vezina and fourth in Hart Trophy voting. And goalies using mostly a butterfly style tend to have their hips and groins act up as they enter their 30s, but with proper care can get operated on and continue playing at a high level, so there's the high probability that last season's procedure will give him five more years at elite status.

It's just that Pickard had shown to have similar potential should he find consistency and is young enough to not have had that patch of injury-related hard luck, while Varlamov had been on a four-season slide, statistically-speaking. Of course, a huge chunk of that falls on the Avs being a terrible, terrible team with no defense to speak of during the entirety of Sakic's tenure with the club - and perhaps one can qualify its depth during the Greg Sherman years as questionable as well.

That being said, I've been waiting for years to feature this beautiful card, #TS-SV from Upper Deck's 2013-14 Artifacts set and Treasured Swatches sub-set:

It shows Varlamov wearing the Avs' white (then-away) uniform in a holding position, either while play is in the offensive zone or waiting on a face-off, and features two matching game-worn jersey swatches.

Jimmy Howard Dual Jersey Card

This summer, the Detroit Red Wings surprised a good number of onlookers and pundits by protecting Jimmy Howard and offering Petr Mrazek as bait for the Vegas Golden Knights expansion draft; Vegas ended up plucking Tomas Nosek from the Wings instead, after the Pittsburgh Penguins added a draft pick to entice them to pick Marc-André Fleury.

We now know that it had much to do with Mrazek not being a good team player, having requested Howard be traded despite not performing well enough to be slotted as the #1 goalie himself.

But what of the merits of Howard? Hasn't be been on a straight decline ever since he signed his extension in 2013? Not exactly.

He has been injured quite a few times and hasn't suited up in 60 games or more since 2010-11, but part of that is also linked with platooning with Mrazek, who'd been groomed to be the Wings' next #1 since the day he was drafted.

Injuries notwithstanding, Howard has had a GAA below 2.50 in five of his eight full seasons in the NHL, and below 2.30 in four; his save percentage was below the .910 mark in just two of those, and he finished with GAAs of 2.79 and 2.80 those two years as well, including in 2010-11, when a .908 save percentage was near the average for an NHL starter.

Last season, before missing three months with a sprained knee, he ranked in the top-3 for wins, save percentage and GAA; he finished with a 2.10 GAA and .927 save percentage, because the Team USA alumnus's skill set has his well-equipped to deal with the current trend of players shooting from any angle to boost their Corsi rankings. He didn't finish twice in Vezina top-10 voting for naught.

Now, I'm not saying I'd pick him in the first round of my office pool, nor that he's become one of the 15 best in the world*, but if Carey Price is worth $10.5M per year, having the $5.9M Howard in net is a decent value and bang for your buck. Unless, of course, you factor in Marc-André Fleury at $5.75M, Ben Bishop at $4.917, or Braden Holtby at $6.1M...

Here he is sporting the Wings' white (now-away) uniform, on card #TS-JH from Upper Deck's 2013-14 Artifacts set and Treasured Swatches sub-set:

It features two game-worn jersey swatches.

*For the record, my top-15 this year would read: Holtby, Sergei Bobrovsky, Cam Talbot, Devan Dubnyk, Matt Murray, Jonathan Quick, Corey Crawford, Price, Pekka Rinne, Tuukka Rask, Fleury, Andrei Vasilevskiy, Robin Lehner, Martin Jones, and Henrik Lundqvist (out of respect for his past and for when he's on, such as in last year's playoffs). I think the Vezina nods will go to Bishop (winner), Dubnyk, and Talbot.

Rod Brind'Amour Autographed Card

A lot of folks are high on the Carolina Hurricanes, with many experts predicting they may finish in the playoff picture; not me, I see them finishing in 7th place in the Metropolitan Division. The rest of the division is too strong, and head coach Bill Peters has never been able to reach the postseason so far. Or make a meaningful dent anywhere in his profession.

Yes, the defense is talented, but that didn't stop Eddie Lack and Cam Ward from looking like beer-league amateurs last year, and I'm not convinced the offense is ready to kick it into gear either. Also, in terms of leadership, I also don't see anyone on the team worthy of supporting likely captain Justin Williams before he retires (assuming he gets the title bestowed upon him this year, but with Peters and GM Ron Francis running things, even that's not a given).

Let's not forget this is the same organization that took the letter right from Rod Brind'Amour's chest to hand it to Eric Staal, whose departure led to this leadership void in the first place...

And Brind'Amour's been an assistant coach with the team since the 2011-12 season; chances are, like Doug Weight before him with the New York Islanders, the former captain may be ready to take the reins from Peters. It won't make the offense any more skilled nor will it erase Jeff Skinner's concussion history, but it could bring in a breath of fresh air to a franchise that has stagnated, nay fallen out of orbit, since its lone Stanley Cup championship in 2006.

That is, of course, unless the team moves to Québec City first, where they will require a French-speaking coach.

First things first, though, here is Brind'Amour wearing the Canes' former white uniform on card #84 from Upper Deck's 2007-08 Victory set:

He signed it in black sharpie after a game at the Bell Centre.

2016-17 Parkhurst Hockey Box Break

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

First off, let's start by saying there were a few things wrong with the release of Upper Deck's 2016-17 Parkhurst collection, starting with the fact that they were supposed to be sold exclusively at Canadian Walmart stores in December of 2016, but because there were issues with an Ontarian distributor, they found their way into American Walmart stores instead for the longest time.

I bought an Ottawa Senators team pack - containing 10 of the 11 cards of Sens players in the set - during the playoffs last year before I saw a box anywhere. That changed yesterday when I went to a Walmart Supercenter, shopping for a play set for my cat and saw them; I put down the Marvel Daredevil figurines I had laid my hands on and took this box instead, for a cool $29.92 (plus taxes, which amounts to $34.50).

What I got was 120 cards - so, 40 cents each - but there were so many inserts and variants that I was left with a satisfaction I hadn't felt since... well, since Panini produced Score sets for the NHL, which reminded me of my youth.

The cards are thin and fragile, and super glossy; they'll be a pain to sign for players, and they'll be easy to crease, as they seem to be half as thick as regular cards (Series 1, O-Pee-Chee, MVP, etc.). However, they look good, the design feels right, and there's just enough variety that I was happy even though I didn't pull an autograph or a jersey card.

Here's a breakdown of what I got:

89 regular-issue cards with a green border, with the back showing statistics from the past four seasons, which is enough to see how players are trending:

There were, however, seven doubles: Matt Beleskey, Jake Allen, Colin Greening, Jamie McGinn, Roman Polak, Jonathan Toews, and Kyle Okposo.

The variants come in either the "red" or "black" variety, which look like this (notice how the alternate border extends to the back of the card as well):

Adam Lowry, Boone Jenner and Ben Hutton are the only three players whose regular-issue cards ended up being variants for me, but I did get a few Rookies that were of the "red" variety (Pontus Aberg, Charlie Lindgren, and Thomas Chabot) to go with my 18 other "Rookie" cards: Mitch Marner, Lindgren, Lawson Crouse, Chase De Leo (twice), Alan Quine (twice), Oliver Kylington, Brandon Carlo, Pavel Zacha, Gustav Forsling, Matthew Tkachuk, Ivan Provorov, Frédérik Gauthier, Travis Konecky, Stephen Johns, Kasperi Kapanen and Oliver Bjorkstrand:

I also landed one "Rookie Parade" card of Connor Brown:

There was one "Checklist" I could have done without, despite it featuring Auston Matthews:

I also fell upon three "NHL Centennial Salute" cards, including these two of Mark Messier and Jonathan Quick, as well as one of Glenn Hall:

And the goalie nerd in me was happy to pull two foil "Protectors Of The Net" cards, Carey Price and Pekka Rinne:

Again, despite landing no "real hits", I was left with a giddy and satisfying feeling after opening this box, the likes of which I hadn't felt in maybe five years of when opening boxes - and this is for a box of a product that is a season old.

This is a solid 8.5/10 for me.

Roman Josi Jersey Card

Earlier this afternoon, I went ahead and predicted the Nashville Predators would finish second in the Central Division. Here's another, perhaps bolder one: following the retirement of captain Mike Fisher, the Nashville Predators will name Roman Josi as his replacement in the next few days.

It makes sense. He's one of the longest-tenured players on the roster, he and Ryan Ellis have known the highs and lows of the franchise and learned how to lead under the tutelage of Fisher and Shea Weber, and both are part of the best defensive unit in hockey with Mattias Ekholm and P.K. Subban. He and Subban consistently get Norris Trophy votes, and both perform extremely well under pressure.

But only Josi is cool-headed enough to not just lead by example - which Subban can do extremely well, too - but calm his troops down when needed. Not get too excited. Stick to the plan.

Josi is the only player to encompass all of those descriptions and should, thus, end up being the second Swiss captain of an NHL team, after Mark Streit with the New York Islanders.

Here he is wearing the Preds' yellow (home) uniform on the jersey version of card #29 (the "Copper" variant) from Upper Deck's 2015-16 SP Game-Used Edition set:

It features a blue game-worn jersey swatch.

Mike Ridley Autographed Card

Ealier today, I wrote that I thought the Washington Capitals would finish third in the Metropolitan Division, which leads me to card #320 from Pro Set's 1990-91 Series 1 set:

Once again, I loved this set. A nice, big action picture, huge borders that matched the team's uniform's colours, the player's position and jersey number on the front of the card... this was the height of card sophistication, in my book. Unfortunately, Pro Set made too many error on them, then they made too many of them, all the other manufacturers followed suit, and for a white they worth less than the money you'd get by taking them to a recycling plant, because (yes, kids) there was a time when they paid you to do that.

Still, it's a beauty, and Mike Ridley's black-sharpied signature on it, complete with his uniform number (17) tagged at the end, just adds to it.

Although Ridley was never drafted and spent some time in Tier II Juniors and the Canadian Collegiate system, he made an impact the second he was invited to a New York Rangers training camp, instantly becoming the team's second-line center and contributing 65 points, finishing fourth in Calder voting although he garnered 20 more points than the second-place Wendel Clark; Gary Suter is the one who won the Rookie Of The Year award that year. He followed that with 14 points in 16 playoff games, and a Stanley Cup Final may have been in the cards had it not been for Patrick Roy's heroics single-handedly winning the Montréal Canadiens the Cup.

Midway through his sophomore season, the Rangers sent him to the Washington Capitals, where he would shine for seven and a half years, accumulating 547 points in 588 games, including a 41-goal season in 1988-89.

He followed that up with a short tenure with the Toronto Maple Leafs, where head coach Pat Burns didn't like smooth and skilled players, preferring brawn, and he was promptly shipped to the Vancouver Canucks for rugged veteran Sergio Momesso. It was Ridley who scored the Canucks' first goal at General Motors Place (now Rogers Arena).

Although his time in Vancouver was synonymous with herniated disks and back pain, he still managed to put 26 goals, 47 assists and 73 points on the scorecard in 112 games with the team, and 4 more points in 4 games with their AHL affiliate Manitoba Moose when giving it a final go in 1997-98.

Throughout his career, he garnered Selke and Lady Byng votes, proving his two-way gentlemanly play was respected by everyone in the game.

Sam Bennett Jersey Card

There are varying opinions of Sam Bennett's new deal online, with some saying he got fleeced by Calgary Flames management by signing a two-year deal with a cap hit of $1.95M.

Here's my reasoning for why it's a better deal for him:

First off, he's showing good faith and pretty much admitting he had a sub-par 2016-17 season (13 goals, 13 assists, 26 points and 75 penalty minutes in 81 games, ten points down from the 18-18-36 he posted in 77 games from the previous season) and is willing to make amends. That scores high in my book.

The team's now left with $5.2M on the cap, which should be more than enough to sign someone like Jaromir Jagr who would immediately add talent in the top-9, and frees up a bit of money for an in-season trade in case someone under-performs or gets injured. Both of these would likely help Bennett produce at a higher clip than last year.

Sure, there are comparables like Nick Bjugstad, who signed for a $4.1M cap hit ahead of the 2015-16 season at the age of 23; but what the Flames are looking for in Bennett is a progression like Nick Bonino's - who played on the third line for three different teams before the Nashville Predators signed him this summer to center the second - except in accelerated form, which is fair to ask of a fourth-overall draft pick (2014).

He has two years to post a 40-to-50-point season and hover around 20 goals, like a second Mikael Backlund; if and when he does, he'll be making second-line money ($5M to 6.5M), which will be worth it for both the team and the player.

Here he is sporting his usual #93 on card #FT-SB from Upper Deck's 2015-16 Ice collection and Fresh Threads sub-set:

It shows the gold medalist (Team Canada, 2013 U18 World Juniors) wearing the Flames' white (away) uniform and features a matching jersey swatch from a rookie photo shoot.