Petr Nedved Autographed Card

The 1990 NHL draft caught my generation's imagination, in part thanks to it happening just prior to the league expanding its card licensing to allow for multiple manufacturers to produce cards, which in turn stimulated manufacturers to find innovative ways to feature more players, trying to be one step ahead of the competition, usually by trying to get an exclusive on the next "big" rookie...

And so the 1990-91 sets were the first to feature cards of first-round picks from the draft. Only two of them never played an NHL game: Michael Stewart (New York Rangers) and Scott Allison (Edmonton Oilers).

Heck, only six players drafted in the second round never played in the big show. 98 made it to the NHL in total.

15 players suited up for more than 1000 regular-season games. 71 played in over 100 games.

Three players posted more than 1000 career points: Jaromir Jagr (1921), Keith Tkachuk (1065), and Doug Weight (1033).

Seven scored more than 300 goals: Jagr (766), Tkachuk (538), Peter Bondra (503), Owen Nolan (422), Vyacheslav "Slava" Kozlov (356), Geoff Sanderson (355), and Petr Nedved (310).

Eleven had over 1000 penalty minutes: Gino Odjick (2567), Brad May (2248), Tkachuk (2219), Chris Simon (1824), Nolan (1793), Derian Hatcher (1581), Keith Primeau (1541), Enrico Ciccone (1469), Chris Tamer (1183), Jagr (1167) and Paul Kruse (1074), with Mike Ricci (979), Weight (970) and Turner Stevenson (969) falling just short.

Team captains? Jagr, Nolan, Tkachuk, Weight, Hatcher, Primeau, Alexei Zhamnov, and Craig Conroy.

#1 goalies? Martin Brodeur, Félix Potvin, Roman Turek. Solid backups? Trevor Kidd, Mike Dunham, Corey Schwab, and Tommy Soderstrom.

To put it simply, it was one of the best draft classes of all time.

And the second overall pick, who modeled his game after Wayne Gretzky from the way he tucked in his jersey in his pants to the bent over stance when skating forward to the pass-first attitude on two-on-ones was Nedved, a lanky Czechoslovakian defector who stood at 6'2" and only weighed 178 pounds at the time (he would grow to 6'3" and 205 pounds in his later years).

Nedved posted 65 goals, 80 assists and 145 points (with 80 penalty minutes) in just 71 games in his draft year for the WHL's Seattle Thunderbirds, despite playing away from his friends and family, before the internet, back when long-distance phone calls would cost a fortune, and while on the receiving end of racist taunts as a "commie" and "job thief", skating in Western Canada.

He went on to acquire his Canadian citizenship in 1993, even suiting up for Team Canada at the '94 Olympics whilst in a contract dispute with the Vancouver Canucks, earning a silver medal in the process, proving those kids wrong in their assessment of his true intentions when leaving Czechoslovakia; he won bronze representing the Czech Republic at the 2012 World Championships to bring things back full circle and to this day still spends half his time in Liberec and the other half in Vancouver.

What's impressive is his longevity and production even past his peak; his last 25-goal season in the NHL came in 2002-03 with the Rangers when he scored 27, yet two years later he scored 22 in just 46 games for Praha Sparta during the season-long 2004-05 lockout; and in his final six seasons in the Czech League, playing for his hometown Liberec Bili Tygri HC, he was still a point-per-game player:

from HockeyDB

He retired a month after the 2014 Sochi Olympics, although he hinted at a return at age 46 last year so he could play against Jagr.

He signed this card for me in blue ballpoint pen when I was a kid, probably in the early 1990s:

It's his first rookie card, #402 from Pro Set's 1990-91 Series 1 set, wearing the team's white (home) jersey from the draft. He wore #19 with the Canucks (1990-93) but mostly wore #93 (in honour of the year he received his Canadian citizenship) for the remainder of his career, with the St. Louis Blues, Pittsburgh Penguins, Rangers, Phoenix Coyotes, Philadelphia Flyers, and Oilers.

Vincent Lecavalier Swatch Card

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Vincent Lecavalier's name is all over the Tampa Bay Lightning's record book: most career goals (383), second in career assists (491) and points (874), the team's longest-serving captain (6 seasons) and up until tonight, its single-season points leader (108).

Nikita Kucherov's season for the ages, however, has now put the latter in the past, as he's now at 110 points with 13 more games to go in the regular season. This marks Kucherov's second-consecutive 100-point season, and he's been so impressive that he's rendered offensive stars like Steven Stamkos, Tyler Johnson and Brayden Point mere afterthoughts.

Then again, Tampa's so strong this season that both of its goalies - Andrei Vasilevskiy and Louis Domingue - have each had 10-game winning streaks this year. Of course, they're playing behind what is by far the best defense in the league in Norris winner Victor Hedman, All-Star Ryan McDonagh, potential future Norris winner Mikhail Sergachev, Anton Stralman, Braydon Coburn, and Dan Girardi. Any of the first four could be a first-unit player on any other team.

The Bolts are even more balanced than in Lecavalier's heyday, when he was surrounded by the likes of Hall of Famers Martin St-Louis and Dave Andreychuk, Brad Richards, Fredrik Modin, Cory Stillman, and Ruslan Fedotenko up front, Dan Boyle, Pavel Kubina, Cory Sarich and Jassen Cullimore out back, and "The Bulin Wall" Nikolai Khabibulin in nets. Some of those guys were extremely talented, and they did win the 2004 Stanley Cup, but they don't stack up against the All-World talent on this year's team, which was the fourth-fastest of all time to reach 100 points (although, of course, this warrants the asterisk for happening in the shootout era where there are no longer tied games).

Here is Lecavalier, sporting the captain's "C" on the Bolts' alternate jersey from last decade, on card #1 from Panini's 2011-12 Titanium set and Game-Worn Gear sub-set:

It features a black swatch that is more likely to be from the Lightning's black (away) uniform. I'd like to note that I like this jersey a lot better than the team's current alternate, the "Black Ice" uniform:

Urgh. Tampa Bay's batting average for jerseys is among the worst in the league with the Buffalo Sabres.

Derick Brassard Jersey Card

It hasn't been a fun couple of years for Derick Brassard.

The 6th overall pick of the 2006 NHL draft, he was a building block of the Columbus Blue Jackets from 2007 until 2013, when the New York Rangers made the Jackets an offer they couldn't refuse, essentially offering a just-past-his-prime Marian Gaborik for the young, emerging center, with secondary assets going each way as well.

In New York, Brassard became, essentially, a 60-point 1-B center, making the Blueshirts one of the best teams in the league down the middle, with Derek Stepan on equal footing and Kevin Hayes just behind them. Brassard was a key cog in the Rangers reaching consecutive Conference Finals in 2014 and 2015 (one of them a Stanley Cup Final, actually).

It was this type of production the Ottawa Senators were aiming to receive when they traded for him, sending the younger Mika Zibanejad to Manhattan before the 2016-17; he may have only had 39 points in 81 games that year in Guy Boucher's defensive system, but that still got the Sens to the second overtime period of Game 7 of the Eastern Conference Final. In a way, the got exactly what they wanted from a hometown kid.

And then the proverbial shit hit the fan and everything unraveled, with GM Pierre Dorion opting to dismantle the team as it started getting eaten away from the inside through odd stories involving Mike Hoffman's girlfriend versus Erik Karlsson's wife, and Matt Duchene sowing the seeds of discord as he is wont to do (remember Ubergate?).

In that dismantling, Brassard was sent to the Vegas Golden Knights for a third-round pick, who themselves flipped him to the Pittsburgh Penguins for Ryan Reaves and a fourth-rounder. The Pens were gearing for a third consecutive Cup run and figured Brassard, in a #3C spot, would be the best third-liner in the league; they also had the depth to pair him with the likes of Phil Kessel, Jake Guentzel, Connor Sheary, Bryan Rust or any other past home-run AHL call-up... except the Pens' luck had run out. All of their guesses in previous seasons had panned out, but their smart-money moves were now busts.

Less than a calendar year later, he was shipped to the Florida Panthers with a plethora of draft picks for Nick Bjugstad and Jared McCann. Twenty-four days after that, the Panthers flipped him to the Colorado Avalanche, for a third-rounder.

I was big on him when the Sens acquired him, so I thought it'd be fitting to feature him wearing Ottawa's red jersey (with matching swatch) on card #GJ-BR from Upper Deck's 2017-18 Series 1 set and UD Game Jersey sub-set:

The swatch is actually very bright to the naked eye, the scan doesn't do it justice.

He'll be a UFA this summer; I doubt he gets a long-term deal despite being just 31 years old - and I'm not sure he gets anywhere near the $5M cap hit he had for the last five years, either.

Derek Stepan Swatch Card

The Arizona Coyotes have been the most snake-bitten team in the NHL this season, and the news just got worse as their #1 center, alternate captain Derek Stepan, was just ruled out of the next 4-6 weeks with a lower-body injury. He joins #1 goalie Antti Raanta, shut-down center Dave Bolland, top-pairing defenseman Jason Demers, rookie Kyle Capobianco, middle-six winger Michael Grabner, and young star Nick Schmaltz on the injured reserve list.

Last year, Stepan posted 56 points for the Coyotes, his second-best career mark, one point less than during the 2013-14 season with the New York Rangers. He was also second on the team, behind only star rookie Clayton Keller.

He captained the gold medal-winning Team USA at the 2010 World Juniors, leading the tournament with 14 points (4 goals and 10 assists) in 7 games and being named to the tournament's All-Star Team.

Here he is wearing the Rangers' classic white (now-away) uniform with a matching game-worn jersey swatch on card #15 from Panini's 2011-12 Crown Royale set and All The King's Men sub-set:

Stepan's cap hit of $6.5M runs through the 2020-21 season.

Jamie Macoun: Two Autographed Cards

It feels good to finally see the Calgary Flames near the top the NHL standings, 30 years after their last Presidents Trophy (and Stanley Cup) in my youth.

One of the important members of those strong 1980s Flames was Jamie Macoun, who could have had a stellar career as a point-collecting defenseman due to his size, speed and strength, but instead forged himself a reputation as one of the best shut-down defensemen in the league on the team's second pairing, with Ric Nattress. Between 1986-87 and 1990-91, his plus-minus read as follows: +33, +40, +34, and +29.

He missed the entire 1987-88 season after a car accident that first responders initially thought had been fatal, as he lost control of his vehicle, swerved into oncoming traffic on the other side of the highway, initiated a head-on collision, turned upside-down and skidded the length of a hockey rink (some 200 feet) on its roof; it took 45 minutes to get Macoun out of the vehicle because his arm was pinned underneath it, and the nerve damage was so bad that doctors gave him a 50-50 chance of ever being able to use it again - playing hockey was pretty much out of the question at that point, yet he returned. He pleaded guilty to charges of reckless driving and was fined.

The 1989-90 Flames team was probably the best team the franchise ever iced, although it finished second overall, a year after finishing first and winning the Cup. Its top two centers each passed the 90-point mark (Joe Nieuwendyk had 95, Doug Gilmour was a close second with 91); one of the greatest Russian forwards of all time (Sergei Makarov) won the Calder Trophy as Rookie Of The Year with 86 points after crossing the Atlantic Ocean; Gary Roberts (39), Joe Mullen (36) and Theoren Fleury (31) each passed the 30-goal mark; Paul Ranheim (26) and Brian MacLennan (20) each reached the 20-goal plateau; Joel Otto and Jan Hrdina's two-way play were both Selke-worthy; Al MacInnis (90) and Gary Suter (76) both posted point-per-game performances from the blue line; Macoun (+34), Dana Murzyn (+19) and Brad McCrimmon (+18) were all tremendous on the penalty kill; and Mike Vernon and Rick Wamsley were both dependable between the pipes, with Vernon coming off a Conn Smythe-worthy performance in the previous playoffs.

His career took a turn when he was part of one of the biggest (and lopsided) trades of my lifetime, as he was sent to the Toronto Maple Leafs with Gilmour, Nattress, Wamsley and prospect Kent Manderville for Craig Berube, Alexander Godynyuk, Gary Leeman, Michel Petit and backup goalie Jeff Reese. He helped the Leafs (along with Gilmour and a young Félix Potvin) reach the 1993 Conference Finals, falling to Wayne Gretzky's Los Angeles Kings, who themselves ultimately lost to the Montréal Canadiens.

He ended his career by playing just over a season for the Detroit Red Wings, who won the Cup in his first quarter-season with the team and finished first overall for his final season.

He returned to Calgary after retiring, running and co-owning a real estate firm; he also owned a stuffed toy store with his wife early in his career, and a Ford dealership in Ontario in his Leaf days. He is smart and business-savvy, but also affable, a quality that comes in handy as the head of the Flames' Alumni Association.

He was also an unquestioned leader, and was part of a rotation of team captains in 1990-91, as can be attested by the two cards below, starting with #38 from Pro Set's 1991-92 Series 1 set:

And there is also card #504 from Score's 1991-92 Score (Canadian Edition) set:

Both show him wearing the team's classic red (then-away) uniform and sporting the captain's "C". He signed them in blue sharpie at an NHL Alumni game.

He also suited up for Team Canada four times, winning silver medals at the 1985 and 1991 World Championships.