Anthony Duclair Autographed Card

To many, Anthony Duclair is a mystery inside a riddle inside a maze that is lost somewhere in the vast confines of space. That's because he's a talented winger with all the tools needed to make an impact in today's NHL: tremendous speed, agile hands, a good shot and youth, as he's still just 23 years old.

But he doesn't backcheck hard enough and will make defensive mistakes (like Thomas Vanek still does at age 35, or more fittingly, like 27-year-old Evander Kane used to do, as he's closer to Duclair generationally). Or, as John Tortorella put it in late February, in his hometown of Montréal, with his parents watching the press conference on TV:

Duclair had many options to sign this summer, including a couple of two-year deals, and a two-way contract to play in his hometown (or more likely, a stint with the Montréal Canadiens' farm team, the Laval Rocket under Joël Bouchard's tutelage). Instead, he chose the Columbus Blue Jackets' one-year offer close to league minimum specifically to play under Tortorella, saying:

Before signing here, I talked to a bunch of guys that played for Torts and all I heard were good things. They all said he takes your game to another level and that's what I need, especially at this time in my career. You hear and you see all those interviews on YouTube, and all those rants, it's because he cares. He cares about his players. The main thing I heard is, "If you work hard for him, he'll battle for you."

My agent is Philippe Lecavalier, and his brother is [Vincent Lecavalier]. I talked to him a lot, about what happened in Tampa, when [Tortorella] came in and took the "C" away from him. We talked about what he went through. Then he told me it would be a good fit for me to play for him. It definitely opened my eyes, and it definitely was a no-brainer coming from a guy like that. (...)

If he calls me out, I don't take anything personal. He's just trying to make me a better player. He talks to me privately as well, he doesn't keep anything secret; if he has something to say, he says it, and as a player, you respect that a lot. Some coaches keep it to themselves and you don't get an explanation. He's going to give you that explanation every time. I like the challenge.

As usual, it's one thing to heed the warning, it's another to experience it firsthand. Torts is right in saying The Duke's got all the tools, and it isn't easy for a guy like Duclair, who was a goal-per-game regular-season producer and point-per-game postseason player on a Memorial Cup-caliber Québec Remparts team in Juniors, at point-per-game player on a gold-winning Team Canada club at the World Juniors and a 20-goal scorer in the NHL, to suddenly hear he doesn't know how to play the game, to be forced to play like old teammates of his who were never drafted, to not create plays out of nothing.

But that's the dilemma in the NHL. There are precious few who do not need to play defensively and can get their 50-60 points, but the vast majority of players need to play a perfect two-way game of chess to get middle-of-the-road stats (15-point guys turn in 25-point performances that way, and point-per-game AHLers get their 40-50 NHL points that way too). It evens the game down the middle, with creative plays fewer and further between - but they're still there at times, just once per week instead of once or twice per game; that means players can get a chance to win it for their team that once a week instead of tethering the edge of costing a game per week for their team.

That lesson is what turned Erik Karlsson and P.K. Subban into the best of their profession (although some still make the case that Subban remains risky a few times per year), and that's what separates that elite class from the decent-to-very-good, which holds the likes of Vanek, Ron Hainey in his prime, Morgan Rielly and Mike Reilly at the moment, and many more.

On the other hand, playing within the system is what makes late-round draft picks like Brendan Gallagher and projected spare forwards like Paul Byron into sure-fire 30- and 20-goal scorers.

NHL forwards are considered in their prime from ages 25 to 32; at 25, they're still in the shape they were in at 22, but stronger, and have started to use their experience to their advantage; from 30 to 32 is a stasis, where experience, health and nutrition help keep their production leveled, and after that, the toll on their bodies start showing, they slow down and must rely on their Hockey IQ more and more. Players like Duclair have more "innate hockey reflexes" (pure skill) than "Hockey IQ" (positioning and tactics), but all is not lost for him yet. The colour of his skin may mean a handful of teams in the U.S. might be more hesitant to give him a chance (I really hate to say this, but the past couple of years have shown that racism is not a thing of the past, unfortunately, even if hockey as a sport doesn't come with inherent biases against individuals - at least in my lifetime, it was probably different in Willie O'Ree's day), but he will probably be allowed another, final mulligan in North America before having to resort to playing in Europe if things once again turn sour between now and the end of April.

I just hope it doesn't have to get to that, and that he can find a permanent place within the Ottawa Senators organization. They need each other - but they need the best of what each has to offer, not the noise.

Here he is in happier times, as a member of the New York Rangers, when his future was at its most promising, Manhattan having already given him the nickname "The Duke", his spectacular play already winning the hearts of the team's fans:

That's card #U41 from Upper Deck's 2014-15 O-Pee-Chee Update collection and Marquee Rookie sub-set. I actually bought the unsigned card on Ebay then had him sign it in blue sharpie years later.

Ben Bishop Jersey Card

Once again, Ben Bishop is quietly having a Vezina consideration-worthy season, leading the league in save percentage. He is by far the biggest reason why the Dallas Stars will be making the playoffs, especially since Jamie Benn's having a very difficult season with just 47 points in 67 games so far.

Sportsnet conducted an analysis comparing Bishop's save percentage in just about every situation not just to the rest of the league but also his backup Anton Khudobin (who "benefits" from the same offense-depleted roster and playing style), so despite seeing fiercest competition by definition of his #1 role, Bishop's outplaying everybody in the NHL except likely Vezina winner Andrei Vasilevskiy this season, who trails him by one point (.933 vs .932):

Sure, the three-game shutout streak (breaking Ed Belfour's old record by five minutes before leaving the game with a lower-body injury) helped with his stats line, but he was having an MVP season until then anyway. He already had three shutouts in the bank on a team whose defense reads like a who's who of who's who: star defenseman John Klingberg missed 18 games due to an injury, Miro Heiskanen is a rookie, Esa Lindell is looking like a good second-pairing defender, and Ben Lovejoy, Taylor Fedun and Roman Polak are supposed to be extras who won't produce much offensively but will finish with a +/- of around 0 in a good year yet were pushed onto roles that may be bigger than they can handle because Julius Honka (29 games played) and Marc Methot (9) were each sidelined for most of the season.

The team's Top-10 scoring leaders also looks like that of a team waiting for the lottery to give them a high draft pick:

from HockeyDB

And yet, not only do they look like a lock for the playoffs, they may even finish above Wild Card status:

This, to me, has Bishop as a nominee for the Hart Trophy (league MVP) as well, likely finishing third behind Tampa Bay Lightning magician Nikita Kucherov and Calgary Flames leader Johnny Gaudreau.

And so I thought it'd be a good moment to focus on card #GJ-BI from Upper Deck's 2018-19 Series 1 set and UD Game Jersey sub-set:

You might recall it from a Box Break from late December. It shows him wearing the Stars' beautiful green (away) uniform with 25th Anniversary (of their move to Dallas) patch, and prominently featuring a white game-worn jersey swatch.

Brent Ashton: Two Autographed Cards

Three weeks ago, the NHL trade deadline saw nearly 50 trades happen with a total of 83 actual players switching teams (one of them, Derick Brassard, moving twice) with just about the same number of draft picks switching owners.

No stranger to moving, Brent Ashton was the NHL's record-holder in that category for more than a decade, having been traded eight times in his 14-season career, a feat that was tied by Mike Sillinger in 2004 and surpassed two years later.

Fun fact: both Ashton and Sillinger hail from Saskatchewan, and both returned to their respective hometowns of Saskatoon and Regina upon retiring from the NHL. Fittingly, Ashton owns a sportswear business and is a licensed... real estate agent. He does know a thing or two about purchasing and moving into and out of homes, after all.

His wife Susan, however, may have had the most experience in that matter according to a 2009 interview with the NHL's website:

"There was no help," she says.

Susan was the one who said goodbye to her friends, sold the home, found a moving company, had the mail redirected, found a new place to live, got the phone hooked up and set up shop in a new city, where she started all over again. She didn't have a dressing room to offer shelter from the storm.

"It wasn't easy," says Brent about what his wife had to juggle.  "As players, we have the dressing room. What do the wives have? They were left on their own."

Of all the moves she's been through, Susan says the one time she was close to the edge emotionally was in 1991. She recalls being at the Winnipeg airport on her way to Boston with a lot on her plate.

"I had a 6-month-old, a 2 1/2-year-old and I had a dog, which was running around the airport, and I had our luggage," she says. "It was left up to me to move. But what could I do? What was the alternative? But I didn't cry. We were fortunate because our kids were not in school."

Their son, Carter Ashton, was a Tampa Bay Lightning draft pick (29th overall, first round, 2009) who now plays in the KHL after a few years in the Toronto Maple Leafs organization.

Brent's prime took place between the 1984-85 and 1989-90 seasons, where he had six consecutive 50-plus-point seasons (all of them with more than 20 goals), with a high of 40 goals and 75 points in 1986-87, which was split almost evenly between the Québec Nordiques and Detroit Red Wings.

He finished his career two games shy of the 1000 mark, with 284 goals and 345 assists for 629 points. He also had three solid postseason runs (one in Québec and two in Detroit) in which he amassed 35 of his career 49 playoff points (in 85 games).

His time in Québec occurring just before I started really paying attention to the sport, I mostly remember him with the Winnipeg Jets, which is why that's the team I had him sign cards from.

First, here he is wearing the team's initial purple (away) uniform on card #130 from Topps' 1990-91 Bowman collection:

Those long white sleeves are a look then-GM John Ferguson had previously tried to impose when with the New York Rangers (to vitriolic reviews) and brought over to the Jets when they made the switch from the WHA to the NHL.

They then modernized their look for the 1990s, as can be attested from card #78 from Score's 1991-92 Score (Canadian Edition) set:

He signed both in black sharpie. These cards allow me to induct him beside Keith Tkachuk as wearers of #7 in my Jets Numbers Project.

Garry Unger: Two Autographed Cards

Before Gary Unger, the NHL Ironman record was 264 straight games. From the time he suited up as a rookie for the Toronto Maple Leafs during the 1967-68 season through trades to the Detroit Red Wings (same year) to the St. Louis Blues during the 1970-71 season and to the Atlanta Flames in 1979-80, he suited up in 914 consecutive games, until head coach Al MacNeil made him a healthy scratch on December 21st, 1979. It was the only game he'd miss that year, and it was just a message to the team's other players that each and every one of them had to be accountable and deserve their ice time, regardless of the fact that they were a record holder, or what language they spoke.

It wasn't the only time Unger was treated unfairly; he was actually traded by Detroit because he defied head coach Ned Harkness. Harkness didn't like Unger's attitude; he'd scored 44 goals the previous season and was now dating the current Miss America, Pamela Eldred, who had been Miss Michigan prior to that. Unger had everything going for him, and had long, blonde shoulder-length locks. Harkness - an authoritarian disciplinarian - was of the old guard that hated individuality and may have been better at running a boarding school. His career .368 NHL record (12-22-4) as a coach now speaking of itself, Harkness insisted all of his players sport crew cuts, specifically aiming at one player to fall in line. Unger refused and was shipped to St. Louis with another good and dependable player (Wayne Connelly) for fading star "Red" Berenson and fourth-liner Tim Ecclestone.

Unger scored 30 goals or more in each of his eight seasons with the Blues, with a high of 41 in 1972-73; he had three seasons over the 80-point mark, with a high of 83 in 1975-76. After the Flames incident, he spent the 1980-81 season with the Los Angeles Kings, collecting 10 goals and 10 assists (20 points) in 58 games, as can be shown on card #123 from O-Pee-Chee's 1980-81 O-Pee-Chee set:

And, yes, he then spent the next three seasons mentoring Wayne Gretzky, Mark Messier, Paul Coffey, Kevin Lowe, Glenn Anderson, Jari Kurri, Ken Linseman, Charlie Huddy, Grant Fuhr, Andy Moog, Laurie Boschman, Lee Fogolin and the other young members of the Edmonton Oilers into being true professionals, as evidenced on card #120 from OPC's 1982-83 O-Pee-Chee collection:

And, yes, this card has him joining Tom Gilbert as wearers of #77 in my Oilers Numbers Project.

After retiring, Unger set his sights to coaching, winning a championship with the 1992-93 Tulsa Oilers and teaching kids in the Tulsa area for many years after that. However, when he started having grandchildren, he moved back to Alberta (Banff, more specifically) and heads the Banff Hockey Association to this day, into his 70s.

I've had these cards, signed in ballpoint pen since pretty much forever.  I met him a few times in the mid-to-late 1990s while attending and eventually teaching at the Jacques St-Jean Hockey School, and there were times when we organized meet-and-greet/tournaments with other hockey schools in the country. He was a class act each time we made our way there, spending time with every kid who went to see him.

Oh, and yes, Doug Jarvis now holds the NHL Ironman record with 964 consecutive games, from October 1975 until October 1987, and Unger is sitting comfortably in second place; the longest current active streak is Keith Yandle's, at 784, following Andrew Cogliano's suspension, which blocked his streak at 830.

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.