Marc-André Fleury Team Canada Jersey Card

So, uh... who are the best goalies in the NHL, some 10-15 games in?

Mike Condon leads the league in goals-against average (1.57) and ranks in the top-10 in wins (6) and top-5 in save percentage (.940), so he's a candidate.

Henrik Lundqvist is tied with Jake Allen and Michal Neuvirth for the lead in save percentage (.945), is fourth for GAA (1.80) and has the second-most number of wins (7), while Allen's two shutouts leave him with a 1.71 GAA and Neuvirth leads the league in shutouts (3).

Jaroslav Halak (1.85, .928 and 2 shutouts), Carey Price (2.01, .936, 7 wins and 2 shutouts), Jimmy Howard (2.01, .934), Corey Crawford (6-4-1 and 2 shutouts on a team not expected to gel until Christmas) and Frederik Andersen (2.03, .935) are also having fine seasons, as expected.

But if one goalie played like an MVP, like a Hart winner this season, it's without Marc-André Fleury, who stands third in GAA (1.74), sixth in save percentage (.939) has the second-most shutouts (2) and a 7-5-0 record on a team that scores 2.21 goals per game. I'm not even sure the Pens win even one game this year without his stellar goaltending; he's this season's Price/Devan Dubnyk so far.

It's not something that was expected just a few years ago, after a second (or third) consecutive poor playoff showing, but with the help of a sports psychologist, he's been able to recover and has been a bright spot for Pittsburgh even in the postseason, and has been their saviour this year as well while Sidney Crosby takes his time getting in gear.

For a few seasons now, when asked who the best Canadian goalies were in the NHL, Price, Crawford and Roberto Luongo would be my go-to guys, but Flower's making it hard to bypass him now - and this year, he might even be The Guy who'd get the nod to start, because many a coach would want to ride the hot hand.

Which brings me to this card I got in a jersey card trade a little more than six months ago, from Upper Deck's 2014-15 Series 1 set (card #GJ-MF of the Game Jersey sub-set), showing him playing for Team Canada with an IIHF-game-worn two-colour jersey patch:

He played for Canada three times, winning consecutive World Juniors silver medals in 2003 and 2004 (earning Top Goalie honors the first time), as well as a gold medal as the back-up at the 2010 Olympics in an all-Quebecer trio with Luongo and Martin Brodeur.

Mark Streit: 2 Autographed Cards

The Montréal Canadiens plowed through the New York Islanders (and my favourite goaltender Jaroslav Halak) last night, and it inspired me to feature a player who was a captain when he was with both teams, wearing the ''C'' with the Swiss Team while with the Habs and with the Isles themselves during his tenure on Long Island before signing on with the Philadelphia Flyers; I'm talking, of course, about Mark Streit.

Drafted 262nd overall by the Habs in 2004 - into his mid-twenties - Streit crossed the Atlantic to join a team that wasn't sure where to make him fit at first; he was a little tentative against the Eastern Conference's big forecheckers and became a liability in his own end at times, but his speed, booming shot and hockey sense were obvious, so head coach Guy Carbonneau used him as a bit of a rover, alternating him between the third pair on the blue line and the fourth-line up front, with some powerplay time.

Eventually, as Sheldon Souray (and his own supersonic shot) left as a free agent, Streit became the go-to guy to receive Andrei Markov's wizardly passes for one-timers, which led to a 13-goal, 62-point season in 2007-08 in which he finished 13th in Norris voting (Markov was sixth).

He would finish in the top-10 in Norris votes in his first two seasons with the Islanders, even participating in the 2009 All-Star Game held in... Montréal. That game had an extremely Canadien feel to it, featuring then-current Habs Markov, Mike Komisarek, Alexei Kovalev, and Carey Price, former Habs Streit and Souray, rumoured Hab-to-be Vincent Lecavalier, hometown boys Roberto Luongo, Stéphane Robidas, Jean-Sébastien Giguère and Martin Saint-Louis, Ottawa-region natives Marc Savard and Dan Boyle, French-Canadian Jonathan Toews, and Zach Parise, the son of former hometown hero Jean-Paul Parisé.

Nowadays, even with the Flyers' pretty awful defense, on a team that seldom wins games, Streit still gets the job done, as can be attested by his 3 goals and 4 assists (7 points) in 13 games so far this season, with only a minus-1 to account for as a differential. He put up 52 points last year, and 44 the season before that.

Granted, at 37 years of age, his best years are probably behind him, and if he wants to win a Stanley Cup, Philadelphia could do him a favour by trading his rights away for draft picks like they did Kimmo Timonen last year, but he still has another season beyond this one with a $5.25M cap hit (although it only pays $4M, so a cash-strapped team who wants to artificially reach the cap floor might be interested in taking his contract on, but those teams are rarely contenders).

I think he's better off staying in Philly and mentoring their young studs next year; it's nice to have guys like Samuel Morin, Shayne Gostisbehere and Robert Hagg in the pipeline, but they will need some dependable veteran leadership to calm them down and provide some pointers; after all, it's not like head coach Dave Hakstol has ever played in the NHL...

Here are a couple of cards he signed for me during the lock-out season (I think), first showing him wearing the Habs' white (now-away) uniform, but listing him as a member of the Islanders, from Upper Deck's 2008-09 O-Pee-Chee set (card #444 in the collection):

Then there's this ''pure'' Islanders card, from Panini's 2012-13 Score set (card $297), where he's sporting their god-awful black-orange-and-grey alternate uniform, which may have been the trial version of their current alternates:

It's hard to tell here - because those monstrosities had text (and the jersey number, football-style) instead of a logo in front - but he's wearing the captain's ''C'' with the Isles.

He signed both cards in black sharpie, adding his uniform number with the Isles (2).

10-Pack Break: 2015-16 Upper Deck Tim Hortons

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

These are the last 10 packs of Upper Deck's 2015-16 Tim Hortons Collector's Series cards I could get my hands on (they are now sold out everywhere I've been), and I also completed a trade with Brad to score a few more cards.

Here are the new inserts I scored myself, starting with three new die-cut cards of Zach Parise, Sidney Corsby and Alex Ovechkin (to go with a double of John Tavares and a triple of Jonathan Bernier):

I also got these two Shining Futures cards, Filip Forsberg (for the third time, though I traded one) and Nathan MacKinnon:

There's this nice Platinum Profiles card of Ovechkin's:

And these Season Highlights checklist cards of Ondrej Pavelec (again) and Johnny Gaudreau:

As far as the trade goes, I nabbed the Gaudreau highlight card, the Parise die-cut and this Jacob De La Rose Shining Futures card:

The trade also got me the following regular-issue cards that I also pulled in these ten packs (oops): Gustav Nyquist, Jaden Schwartz, Jason Pominville and Ryan Getzlaf, as well as those of Milan Lucic, Teddy Purcell, MacKinnon and Gaudreau.

All told, these are the cards I'm still missing: 4, 6, 8, 11, 12, 13, 20, 22, 25, 27, 31, 34, 35, 36, 37, 38, 39, 42, 44, 46, 48, 49, 50, 52, 54, 60, 64, 65, 70, 71, 73, 74, 76, 77, 78, 79, 83, 86, 92, 93, 97, and 98.

And this is the (updated) list of those I have:
1: Tim Horton
2: Eric Staal
3: Andrew Hammond x2
5: Mark Giordano
7: Kyle Turris x2
9: Tyler Johnson
10: Corey Perry x2
14: Jamie Benn
15: Ryan Getzlaf x2
16: Andrew Ladd
17: Radim Vrbata
18: Ryan Strome x2
19: Jonathan Toews
21: James Van Riemsdyk x2
23: Sean Monahan
24: Jiri Hudler
26: Blake Wheeler
28: Claude Giroux
29: Jason Pominville x2
30: Henrik Lundqvist
32: Jonathan Quick
33: Henrik Sedin
40: Henrik Zetterberg
41: Jaroslav Halak x2
43: Adam Henrique
45: Jonathan Bernier x4
47: Taylor Hall
51: Teddy Purcell
53: Jeff Skinner
55: Roberto Luongo x2
56: Milan Lucic
57: Drew Doughty
58: Kris Letang
59: Gustav Nyquist x2
61: Rick Nash
62: Johnny Gaudreau 
63: Tyler Ennis
66: Brian Gionta x3
67: Max Pacioretty x2
68: Jaden Schwartz x2
69: Kyle Okposo
72: Sergei Bobrovsky x2
75: Nathan MacKinnon
80: Ryan Johansen
81: Phil Kessel
82: Tomas Plekanec x2
84: Ryan Nugent-Hopkins x3
85: Steve Mason
87: Sidney Crosby
88: Patrick Kane
89: Tyler Seguin
90: Steven Stamkos
91: John Tavares
94: Corey Schneider
95: Tomas Tatar
96: Ryan Miller
99: Dustin Byfuglien
100: Cammalleri x3

Which means I am now at 58/100 of the regular set and am missing 42. After 40-some packs and an 11-card trade.

Jean-Gabriel Pageau Autographed Card

There were three heroes for the Ottawa Senators tonight, as they beat the Montréal Canadiens in overtime at the Bell Centre - and I got two of them to sign for me tonight. (And I still have two cards I haven't posted from the other one from last year's playoffs in the pipeline).

It was hard to decide who I should feature first, but I decided to go with the player who scored the Sens' first goal of the evening on a shorthanded breakaway, Jean-Gabriel Pageau.

Pageau, who will turn 23 next week, is currently in his first full-time NHL season, but if the Sens played the Habs more often, he'd already be a 50-point player despite playing on Ottawa's third line more often than not. He already has 6 points in 8 regular-season career games against Montréal - including an identical shorthanded goal less than a month ago - and 11 points in 18 games factoring in the playoffs (including a hat trick).

He reached the point-per-game level in both the LHJMQ and AHL, so it's safe to predict he will start hitting the 40-to-60-point soon enough in the NHL as well. As it stands, though, he's a penalty-killing machine who hopes to become the next Daniel Brière.

Here he is with the Gatineau Olympiques, from In The Game's 2011-12 Heroes And Prospects set (card #49 in the collection), which he signed in (dying) blue sharpie:

The Sens are in good hands with Kyle Turris, Mika Zibanejad and Pageau at center. And I'm glad to officially start a player collection of his.

Tomas Fleischmann & Milan Hejduk Dual Jersey Card

Today's card comes from Upper Deck's 2005-06 Rookie Update set (card #237 of the Rookie Inspirations sub-set), a Dual Jersey Card featuring a rookie and a veteran that I got as an add-on in a trade roughly a year ago:

I guess Tomas Fleischmann and Milan Hejduk were paired on this card because they're both Czechs... because there was no way for UD to know they would eventually both suit up for the Colorado Avalanche in 2010-11, with Fleischmann posting 21 points in 22 games to revive his career before moving onto the Florida Panthers.

He had three other seasons where his point production averaged nearly one per game, in 2009-10 with the Washington Capitals (23 goals, 28 assists, 51 points in 69 games) and in consecutive years with the Panthers, in 2011-12 (27 goals, 34 assists, 61 points in 82 games) and 2012-13 (12 goals, 23 assists, 35 points in 48 games).

Paired with David Desharnais on an unusually strong third line with the Montréal Canadiens this season, he currently stands at 10 points (4 goals, 6 assists) in 13 games having signed a one-year deal after attending training camp on a PTO. He had three points against the Winnipeg Jets last night in a 5-1 win.

Still, those numbers are far from Hejduk's, who won the Maurice ''Rocket'' Richard Trophy as the NHL's best goal-scorer (with 50) in 2002-03 and finished his All-Star career with 805 points (375 goals, 430 assists) in 1020 games (plus another 34-42-76 in 112 playoff games, culminating with the 2001 Stanley Cup). He surpassed the 70-point mark on five separate occasions, with a high of 98 in 2002-03.

Internationally, Fleischmann has a bronze medal from the 2002 U-18s, while Hejduk has Olympic gold (1998) and bronze (2006), as well as a bronze medal from the 1998 World Championships and a third-place finish at the 2004 World Cup. With Jaromir Jagr and Dominik Hasek, he was the Czech Team at the turn of the millennium.