Ladislav Smid: 6 Autographed Cards

I featured Ladislav Smid two years ago, mentioning he had been offered to the Ottawa Senators for Dany Heatley, which in retrospect would have been a great trade for Ottawa had Heatley not nixed it; he was becoming the steady, reliable force on the Edmonton Oilers' blue line, which is why I still fail to understand why they dealt him to their provincial rival Calgary Flames (along with goalie Olivier Roy) in the first year of a four-year contract extension.

Sure, at this point, it's safe to say he'll never be a Norris trophy contender for the amount of points he racks up, but his defensive play is just about flawless. During the locked-out season, he was a minus-1 in 48 games... with the Oilers! And last year, he was a combined -10 with the Oilers and Flames, two bottom-feeders with struggling goalies.

He was still good enough to play for the Czech Team at the Olympics, and has averaged less than a penalty minute per game in the NHL - a feat for a 6'3'' defensive defenseman who averages 19 minutes of ice time per game. He's also a team leader and often in the NHL top-10 for blocked shots.

My previous post featured a card of the late-1990s Oilers uniform; today I can add the current/throwback uniforms, starting with the blue (home) one, from Upper Deck's 2013-14 O-Pee-Chee set (card #347, the Retro variant):

There's also the white (currently 'away') uniform, as featured in this 2013-14 Score card (#189 in the set) by Panini:

I've also used both as variants for my own custom line of Hell's Kitchen 2013-14 Series 2 cards (#14 in the checklist, these are variants A, B and C):

But there's also variant D, showcasing him as a member of the Flames, with their white (away) uniform:

I had written Mr. Smid on April 3rd, 2014, and received these six cards back today, August 5th (2014), 124 days later, with the Flames' address added onto my (usually one-way) return envelope. They were signed in black sharpie with his jersey number tagged at the end (5 with Edmonton, 3 with Calgary).

Mike Keane Autographed Card

As I mentioned last week when I featured this Yvan Cournoyer return, I had a few option regarding jersey #12 for my Habs Numbers Project, and one of them was Mike Keane, who I got to meet a few times while he was a member of the Montréal Canadiens, and once with the Manitoba Moose.

Though he did have a 15-goal and 60-point season in 1992-93 - the year the Habs won the Stanley Cup, where a lot of their players had career years - he was mostly a grinder who gave it his all on the ice but was better at not costing his team a game than handing it one. It was that reason that got him to briefly serve as the team's captain, before being part of the trade that would send him and Patrick Roy to the Colorado Avalanche for their first Cup win - and cause the Canadiens a decade of misery.

Keane won a third Cup in 1999 with the Dallas Stars, playing with other former Habs Cup winners Craig Ludwig, Guy Carbonneau, Brian Skrudland - the latter two having also worn the 'C', though only Carbonneau had the title (Skrudland served during another captain's injury, perhaps Carbonneau's).

Keane signed this card a little after the turn of the millennium, though I forget what team he was playing for at the time - it could have been in his second stint with the Avs, or that season when he was with the Vancouver Canucks:

It's from Upper Deck's 1995-96 Collector's Choice set (card #153) and was signed in black sharpie.

Keane and Brent Gilchrist pretty much owe Hall Of Fame coach Pat Burns their NHL careers, as he brought them along when he graduated from the Habs' AHL affiliate Sherbrooke Canadiens, and kept handing them defensive responsibilities at the NHL level, where they improved their game immensely.

A Winnipeg native, Keane spent his final 5 seasons playing for the AHL's Manitoba Moose - which he also captained - and his #12 is the only jersey in team history to be retired.

P.K. Subban Swatch Card

It's finally a done deal! P.K. Subban has finally signed his 8-year contract, valued at $72M (or an average and cap hit of $9M per season). This after asking for $8.5M in arbitration, and after his agent Don Meehan saving said Subban had ''not instructed (him) to make him the highest-paid defenseman in the league''.

I'm not saying Subban won't be worth that money, because he will. The 2013 Norris winner will help the team make that money back with jersey sales alone, before factoring in that he was his team's biggest point producer in a post-season that saw the Montréal Canadiens reach the Conference Finals; his presence combined to Andrei Markov's gives the Habs 15 more points (say 6 wins) than if one of them was absent, and 25 more (10 wins) than if the team was without both.

I'm also in the camp that feels this has been Subban's team for two years, and he's the guy that will ultimately lead them back to the Stanley Cup. The sooner the better, but if it takes 3 to 5 years, maybe by then Subban will have the captain's 'C' sown near his heart and will be the first to receive the prized trophy from the commissioner's hands. This deal seals it: the Habs will live and die through Subban, who now becomes the highest money earner in team history, and surely can handle the pressure that comes with it - unlike the previous two.

Even his detractors - and there are a lot of them judging by the comments sections all over the internet, although who knows how many of those are angry or jealous Boston Bruins or Toronto Maple Leafs fans - have to admit he's among the top-10 defenders in the NHL, despite his imperfections. He may not be as ''complete'' as Markov, Shea Weber and Drew Doughty, he takes more risks, but he makes hockey entertaining to watch, and succeeds far more often than he fails. He's also become a better team player in the past couple of seasons, groomed under GM Marc Bergevin and head coach Michel Therrien - and, to a lesser extent, Team Canada coach Mike Babcock. He won a gold medal with Canada at the 2014 Sochi Olympics, and never once complained despite playing in just one game. He was there for his teammates, and ready to go if called upon, but he accepted his role as the 7th or 8th defenseman. After Habs games, in victory or defeat, he faces the press, and always refers to every event that happened as being a ''team effort''.

The counterpoint to that is I thought Bergevin's hand included the ''Doughty and Weber make much less'' argument, and that Subban's role on the Canadian team showed he still had room to improve; I was thinking his salary would go: 7, 7.5, 8, 8.5, 9, 9, 10, 10 for a total of $69M, for an 8.625 average, giving the team a bit more room to fit other players under the cap. And Subban will ''only'' be 33 by the end of the contract, which means another big payday then. And Montréal being what it is, with ample opportunities for sponsorship deals, especially considering the Habs are owned mostly by the family who owns the Molson-Coors brewery, and in part by Bell Media... But maybe that's just splitting hairs.

In any event, this gives me an opportunity to close out my Subban cards for the summer with this jersey card, from Panini's 2011-12 Certified set (card #128 in the collection, just like the regular card, but from the Mirror variant sub-set, of which it is the blue variation); the red swatch matches the home jersey shown in the picture, and the card is numbered #47/99:

Chris Mason Autographed Card

Chris Mason was a very good, trivia-worthy goalie for a long time who just was five years too late or too early to be an NHL star. Arriving with the Nashville Predators at the tail end of 1998-99 (after having been drafted by the New Jersey Devils and signed as a free agent by the Mighty Ducks Of Anaheim but never playing for either team, nor for the Florida Panthers, who also owned his rights for a few months), he didn't get a full season in until 2003-04, at which time he became All-Star Tomas Vokoun's backup, appearing in 17 games (2.18 GAA, .926 save percentage, one shutout and a .500 win-loss record).

He would spend the locked-out 2004-05 season in Norway (for Vålerenga Ishockey), helping his team to the regular-season and playoff championships, and being widely regarded as the best goalie ever to suit up in the league.

The following NHL seasons saw him take on more and more responsibilities with the Predators, going from 23 games in 2005-06 (12-5-0 record, 2 shutouts, 2.54 GAA and .913 save percentage), 40 in 2006-07 (24-11-0, 5 shutouts, 2.38 and .925) and 51 games in 2007-08 (18-22-6, 4 shutouts, 2.90 and .898 on a decidedly weaker team).

He was then sent to the St. Louis Blues for a fourth-round draft pick, and he did have a couple of good seasons there, setting back-to-back career-highs for games played with 57 in 2008-09 (27-21-7, 6 shutouts - also a career-high - 2.41 and .916) and 61 in 2008-09 (30-22-8, 2 shutouts, 2.53 and .913).

He then signed as a free agent with the lowly and struggling Atlanta Thrashers, playing 33 games in their final year of existence (13-13-3, 1 shutout, 3.39 and .892), then finishing his contract with the Winnipeg Jets in 2011-12, posting the better goaltending record on the team with 20 games played, a 8-7-1 record, 2 shutouts, a 2.59 GAA and .898 save percentage.

Only the Preds were willing to offer him a contract after that, so when NHL play resumed after the lock-out, he had his third stint with the team, but a sub-par season led him to sign in Italy last season, and he'll be playing in Germany this coming season.

Internationally, Team Canada has required his services four times at the World Championships, where he has won gold (2007) and silver (2009) and has a 7-4-0 record in 11 games with a 2.06 GAA facing the world's best players who aren't involved past the first round of the NHL playoffs.

The reason why I mentioned he just may have come at the wrong time is that Nashville always seemed to have an All-Star goalie playing at the same time as he did, but he always could compete at the same level. He was also the better goalie in St. Louis and Atlanta/Winnipeg, but none of those teams could even hope to make a dent in history, the standings, or the playoffs. And nowadays, it seems there are a bunch of goalies, just behind the trifecta of leaders comprised of Henrik Lundqvist, Pekka Rinne and Jonathan Quick, who are in their mid-20s, show a ton of promise, but have yet to win anything on their own (though a case could be made for Jaroslav Halak).

Meaning a 26-year-rold Mason would likely be given the same chances Carey Price, Ondrej Pavelec, Braden Holtby, and Antti Niemi are, whereas a 38-year-old Mason has to play in Europe.

I met Mr. Mason when he was playing for the Jets, after a game in which he relieved Pavelec in a 7-3 defeat; it is then that he signed this 2007-08 SP Authentic card (#86 in the set) by Upper Deck, showing him wearing the Predators' white (away) uniform, which he signed in blue sharpie:

I love his signature. It's either a weapon Aquaman would use, or a bow and arrow, or he thinks he's Bill Durnan. Unlike the Hall Of Fame goalie, Mason has been credited with an NHL goal; he and Damian Rhodes are the only two goalies to have scored both in the NHL and AHL.

Tomas Plekanec Jersey Card

Regular readers know how much I like and respect Tomáš Plekanec, one of the five best two-way centers in the world. He would be one of my two choices for next Montréal Canadiens captain, with Andrei Markov, another one of my favourites, for three to five years, assuming they retire with the team and that P.K. Subban is ready to take on the mantle afterwards (I think he will be).

Both Markov (Team Russia) and Plekanec (Czech Republic) have worn the 'C' internationally, and both have worn the 'A' in Montréal.  Plekanec has captained the Czech team at the World Championships as well as the last Olympics, usually forming a formidable duo with Jaromir Jagr. He has won gold at the World Juniors (2001) and silver (2006) and bronze at the World Championships (2011 and 2012).

Always counted upon to play against the opposition's top line because he is so responsible defensively, Plekanec also usually gets to take most of his face-offs in his defense end. Regardless, he is as consistent as they come, flirting with or reaching the 70-point mark when playing with top-level talent (still while shutting down the opposition, manning the first penalty-killing unit and obtaining sparse powerplay minutes), but will also get 50-60 points playing with mid-level and grinder-type players, usually veterans the coach wants to reward for their valiant efforts, à la Brian Gionta, Travis Moen and Brandon Prust.

He's often unfairly targeted as ''not a point-per-game player'' in Montréal by folks who don't know the game and don't see everything else he brings to the team, and rarely praised for his contributions when playing with guys who, frankly, don't belong in a top-6, but as far as 1-A centers in the NHL go, I place him ahead of Brad Richards, Ryan Kesler, and pretty much everyone not named Sidney Crosby or Jason Spezza; it could even be argued Spezza's defensive faults rank him below Plekanec on many experts' lists...

And so it is with a happy face that I post this 2013-14 SP Game-Used Edition card (#AF-TP of the Authentic Fabrics sub-set) by Upper Deck, showing him wearing the Habs' classic red (home) uniform, but with (my pet peeve) a not-matching white swatch:

Plekanec made the news this week when Brad Marchand said he hated him. Plekanec responded yesterday.