Johnny

 

He was college hockey's player of the year around the same time Johnny Manziel won the equivalent award in football, but "Johnny Hockey" was nothing like "Johnny Football". 

He fell all the way to the fourth round of the NHL draft largely due to his small stature, where he was drafted by the Calgary Flames. He was a Calder(rookie of the year) finalist and won a Lady Byng trophy(clean play) two years later after taking just two minor penalties in 72 games.

He led the Flames in scoring six times, led them to the playoffs five times, and finished fourth in MVP voting twice. In 2021-22 he scored a career-high 115 points and led the NHL with a +64 rating. Flames fans had hopes of seeing Gaudreau and fellow American Matthew Tkachuk bring a Cup to Calgary. 

The Flames wanted keep Gaudreau in Calgary. They were able to offer the most money and term. But he wanted to play closer to his home in New Jersey.

 

The Flyers were interested but did not have the cap space to sign a top-tier free agent. The Devils had the money, the proximity to his family, and a roster of young, talented stars on the rise, notably American center Jack Hughes. The Devils made their pitch and thought they had a good chance at Gaudreau.

He chose Columbus. No one chooses Columbus. The Blue Jackets have rarely developed or attracted star players, never advanced beyond the second round of the playoffs, and never signed a superstar of Johnny's caliber. He wanted to change that. He and his wife felt the city and community was the right fit for them. 

He struggled in his first year with the Jackets. His point totals dropped by 41 points, and his plus/minus rating dropped by nearly a hundred. Columbus finished 6th in the Metro division the year before Gaudreau arrived. They finished last in both of his seasons with the team. 

His point totals dropped even further in 2023-24, to 60 points and a career-low 12 goals. But there was optimism in buckeye country. Top draft pick Adam Fantilli was expected to improve in his second full season. Old Flame Sean Monahan was signed to center Gaudreau's line. Former Devils defenseman Damon Severson had signed as a top-tier free agent last summer. Columbus was becoming a desirable destination for top-tier talent, thanks in large part to Johnny.

The Blue Jackets have had more than their share of off-ice tragedy. Starting goalie Elvis Merzlikins has struggled since the death of his net mate and countryman Matiss Kivlenieks three summers ago. Finnish winger Patrik Laine - a 40-goal scorer in Winnipeg - was acquired by Columbus a year before signing Gaudreau. Though he averaged a point a game from 2021-23, Laine struggled with personal issues that clearly affected his on-ice production. At Laine's request, he was traded to Montreal earlier this month. 

He was back home in Jersey, riding a bicycle with his brother. In town for his sister's wedding. 

From USA Today:

Johnny, 31, and Matthew, 29, were both killed while biking Thursday night in Oldmans Township, New Jersey. Sean Higgins, 43, was arrested on suspicion of driving while under the influence of alcohol and brought to Salem County Correctional Facility. State police said it charged Higgins, from Woodstown, New Jersey, with two counts of vehicular homicide in connection to the brothers' death.

The Gaudreau brothers were riding their bikes on County Route 551 North when they were allegedly struck by Higgins from behind, according to the New Jersey State Police.

Higgins was driving a Jeep Grand Cherokee northbound behind a sedan, SUV and the Gaudreau brothers around 8:20 p.m. on Thursday evening, police said. According to state troopers, Higgins initially moved into the southbound lanes and passed the slower-moving sedan. The SUV in front of Higgins then moved to the middle of the road to safely pass the biking Gaudreau brothers on the right side of the road. However, Higgins then attempted to pass the SUV on the right, hitting Johnny and Matthew Gaudreau from behind and fatally injuring both brothers, according to the highway patrol.

As a fan, it's natural to think of these guys as players on a team. How does the loss of Johnny Gaudreau affect the Blue Jackets' power play... is not something on anyone's mind today. 

You know what's on my mind today? How the loss of Johnny and Matthew affects Katie Gaudreau. This was supposed to be her wedding day, the "happiest day", the day every girl dreams about. 

Instead she has to bury her brothers. All because some asshole got liquored up, got behind the wheel, and got impatient with the slow moving traffic around him. 

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Quick Pics

Haven't done a semi-random picture post in a while, so... here's a few pictures I've taken recently:

Happy 10th birthday, Chris. Lol, I got a steal of deal with this Orioles SLU lot. I'd been looking for some plastic protectors for the figures already in my collection (my rare figures are in old, dusty, yellowing bubbles) and one seller wanted $35 for five brand new protectors. I bought a lot of five figures as shown - with the (used) protectors for $35 instead. The Pro Set boxes were $55 total for the pair.

My 666th post recently reached an appropriate comment/view count:

I'm really struggling with this latest Athletics post. Not because I don't know what to write, but because I'm writing too much! I'm a thousand words in and 900 of them have been about Rickey Henderson. I'm not even close to discussing the Bash Brothers. Sigh... I need an editor...

Dennis will appreciate this... I saw this at a sports store in the mall back home this weekend:

First of all, who in their right mind is paying $80 for Alexei Ponikarovsky's autograph? And second.. um.. why is Stevie Y signing Devils pucks?

Jon came across an old postcard from my home town on eBay (not this one) and thought I'd be interested. I showed it to my mom as I happened to be visiting said home town and she told me that Babe Ruth once played on this field. I knew that.. but there was more I didn't know that might interest someone reading this. It was converted to a racetrack, which my mom worked at as a teenager. But in between that time, the field was named after Tigers pitcher "Wild" Bill Donovan - who is credited as "popular Yankees manager" in this article 🙄

It took us five hours to get home from Connecticut because of a major accident (and a flash flood).

Don't know how we could have gone any slower

But when I got home, there was a flat rate box of cards waiting for me.

Anyone building the 2024 Topps Chrome baseball set? Let me know what numbers you need.

Thanks for reading!



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The Devils Post

This is the New Jersey Devils square of my card album bookshelf. It's full.
 

I only keep base cards in these binders, and the Devils are the first of my four team collections to reach 100% capacity. Which is a bummer because I still need hundreds of NJ base cards. 

Here's a list of cards I need from just the first ten years of the Devils:

1984-85 O-Pee-Chee #116, 361(upgrade)
1984-85 Topps #87(upgrade)
1985-86 O-Pee-Chee #30, 36, 66, 84, 127, 163, 249
1985-86 Topps #66, 84, 127, 139, 163
1986-87 O-Pee-Chee #10, 37, 208
1986-87 Topps #37, 85
1987-88 O-Pee-Chee #101, 135, 140, 157, 191
1987-88 Topps #58
1988-89 O-Pee-Chee #84, 94
1990-91 O-Pee-Chee #27, 73, 172, 178, 224, 245, 284, 306, 334, 358, 457
1990-91 O-Pee-Chee Premier #8, 15, 67, 113
1990-91 Score Canadian #19, 34, 62, 109, 209, 239, 278, 389, 401, 406, 439
1990-91 Score Traded #43T, 63T, 74T, #82T
1990-91 Topps #30
1990-91 Upper Deck French #66, 88, 161, 267, 288, 290, 311, 441
1991-92 Bowman #271, 279, 284-289, 408
1991-92 Parkhurst #98, 317-324, 444, 453
1991-92 Parkhurst French #98, 99, 100, 102, 103, 316, 318, 320, 324
1991-92 Pinnacle - need most
1991-92 Pinnacle French - need most
1991-92 Pro Set #132
1991-92 Pro Set French - need most
1991-92 Pro Set Platinum #260, 288
1991-92 Score #151
1991-92 Score Canadian need most
1991-92 Score Canadian Bilingual #342, 595
1991-92 Stadium Club #24, 47
1991-92 Upper Deck French - need most
1992-93 Bowman #46, 102, 191, 242
1992-93 Topps #513, 516

But... I have a solution. You see, the fourth binder on the shelf is full - just not with Devils cards.

This album holds my complete sets of 1993 SP Baseball and Football. So if I wanted to add more Devils to my collection, all I have to do is buy another hockey card album and move this one.

That would make room for 560+ new Devils cards. And even if I added the pages from the small binder resting on top, I'd still have room for about 380 Devils cards. The small binder holds my 2020s Devils, and I filled the very last page thanks to my most recent order from Sportlots.

Ugh.. I can't wait to be able to scan again.

Picked up some extended series base for 20 cents each, a fantastic deal considering my LCS sells 12-card packs for $14. I even threw in a couple parallels even though my Devils 'hits' box is nearly full.

These red border parallels were also 20 cents each; I had to have the Zacha in particular because, well...

There's absolutely no reason UD should have made a Devils Zacha card in 2023. He played for the Boston Bruins the prior year - as shown on the back of the card.

Maybe he was traded back to Jersey after the 2022-23 season? That happens once in a while, right?

Nope! Pavel played for Boston last year, too. And he'll do so again this year as he's still on their roster today. Upper Deck just doesn't care anymore.

Anyway, I've got room for about five or six more Devils in the parallels/inserts/relics box (fewer if the cards are thicker) Two in particular that I'm trying to secure are Young Guns rookie cards of NJ's top young defensemen, Luke Hughes and Simon Nemec:

These should set me back about $45-50 for the pair, which isn't bad considering their pedigree. Hughes was the #4 overall pick in 2021 and was a Calder (Rookie of the Year) finalist last year at age 20. Nemec was the #2 overall pick in 2022 and had a solid rookie season last year at age 19.

The Devils drafted another defenseman with the 10th overall pick this summer, and have 1st overall picks Jack Hughes(2019) and Nico Hischier(2017) centering their top two lines. If we don't won the effing Cup by 2028, I swear to Satan...

It shouldn't be hard to find a thick card or two on COMC to fill out the box, if and when I do acquire these. However, there's a third section of Devils cards in my collection -- oddballs. I have a box of team-issued sets, ePack exclusives, Tim Horton's singles, and other things that won't fit in the inserts/parallels box:

If I buy another binder and put these in, then push every mainstream base card back.. I'll have room for about 75 Devils cards. That's a much more manageable total, and would give me room to add newer base cards like these:

2006-07 UD Sweet Shot #63
2006-07 UD Trilogy #60
2007-08 UD Ovation #18, 72, 168, 169
2008-09 UD Ovation #31
2009-10 Upper Deck Ice #9
2010-11 Panini All Goalies #48-51
2010-11 Score #300, 302
2011-12 O-Pee-Chee #112, 337, 389
2011-12 Panini Contenders #66
2011-12 UD Artifacts #9, 59, 78
2012-13 Black Diamond #150
2012-13 Score #291
2013-14 O-Pee-Chee #96, 194, 447
2013-14 Panini Prizm #259, 261, 308, 309, 368, 369
2013-14 Panini Titanium #45
2013-14 Score #669
2014-15 O-Pee-Chee #221, 247, 440
2015-16 O-Pee-Chee #140, 248
2015-16 UD Full Force #39
2015-16 Upper Deck Ice #91
2015-16 Upper Deck Trilogy #95
2016-17 O-Pee-Chee #115, 397
2017-18 Upper Deck Ice #91
2018-19 O-Pee-Chee #262, 329, 431, 466
2019-20 O-Pee-Chee #568
2019-20 Upper Deck Allure #85
2019-20 UD Credentials #35, 45
2020-21 O-Pee-Chee #568
2020-21 SP Signature Legends #128, 290
2021-22 UD Artifacts #91
2021-22 UD Credentials #40
2022-23 O-Pee-Chee Platinum #24, 114, 178
2022-23 Parkhurst Champions #55, 70, 281
2022-23 UD Credentials #49, 50

My consolation prize for missing out on the East Coast National this coming weekend could be driving down the Jersey Shore near Asbury Park to check out a new(to me) card shop. I'll be on the lookout for the above listed cards in particular (I'm posting these lists so I can refer to them later.)


Why am I focusing on Devils cards in the middle of August? Oh... no reason...

Thanks for reading!

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Eight Is Enough

The first sports talk radio show I listened to regularly (and willingly*) did a daily countdown of the top three players across all sports** by their uniform number. I am planning to do an updated/expanded list one day, but for now I'm going to list the eight greatest players to wear Number Eight across all major North American sports, for reasons that will become clear soon...

*fvck Mike Franceser

**this was an ESPN show, so "all" sports means "all sports that the host has passable knowledge about" although I became a loyal listener when Jari Kurri was mentioned.

To compile this list, I scrolled through every Sports Reference page under 'frivolities' and looked over each list of players who wore Eight - then I discarded any who wore a different number for a significant part of their careers. We're looking for True Eights here - which excludes Kobe Bryant.

I won't give you a list of 'just missed the cut' players, but I will say that soccer and basketball(both men's and women's) were considered. I'll defer to ESPNW for the greatest eight in WNBA annals, since there's no link to that league's uniform number tracker on basketball-reference.

Futbol was a tough one as well. There's no player-by-number list here, either. Understandable since soccer has so many worldwide leagues and nearly all of the players wear low numbers. Sportskeeda ranked the eight greatest eights in soccer nearly four years ago; Andres Iniesta was the top player they chose. I was unfamiliar with him before the 100 Greatest Athletes list but I had heard of the other top four players - Steven Gerrard, Hristo Stoichkov, and Lothar Matthaus.

There are no men's basketball players on this Top Eight list, either. When you see the names, you'll see why I couldn't justify adding Walt Bellamy or Antoine Walker.

Enough explaining...let's get to the eight greatest eights.

Hey.. that's a 9, not an 8!

Okay, I included "Pops" as an honorable mention, because this card was crucial to the origin story of this blog. I bought it ungraded for $1 on COMC, then had it slabbed and it suddenly transformed into a $150 card. None of my (mostly female) writing friends who read my previous blog would have understood... so I decided to share this and (several hundred) other thoughts with fellow collectors.

Got these cups at the last Red Sox game I attended.

A preview of the next A's series post

42 away from the record...

Cal might not be the best #8 strictly by the numbers, and if I were hosting that radio show today I'd rank him third, Selanne or Steve Young second, and Alex Ovechkin first. Then I'd count the seconds until I was bombarded by combative comments. Where's Yogi Berra, you idiot??!? What's a Teemu, anyway?  

Now for an announcement.. the theme of this post is a nod to my upcoming Eight Year anniversary blogging (primarily) about sports and sports trading cards. On at least two occasions I considered ending the blog or leaving indefinitely, but I'm still here. However I do plan to go dark after the completion of the Athletics series and revert this to a personal journal for a while.

But we're not there yet... there's another milestone post up next, and then three more about the Athletics. And maybe a couple more topics mixed in, before the curtain falls on The Collector.

Thanks for reading!




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What's the Point?

I've now made three purchases with profits from my (friend's) eBay store. Here's the latest:

Once I had about $60 in credit I searched for 'young guns BGS 9.5' and saw a Brayden Point RC. I was surprised, considering his place among the top scorers in the NHL.

Point seemed undervalued to me at $25(ungraded) to $55 (graded). Then again, Mikko Rantanen has more points than Point over the past two years (and more than almost anyone over the past four); yet his Young Guns rookie can be had for much less. I do not understand the hockey card market. I just buy what I like.

Here's a thing I like to do. Whenever I hear a play-by-play announcer mention him, or I see his name on screen..

...I point to him.

I know a lot of collectors don't see a point to slabbed singles, and I can understand that. I invest a lot less money in them than I used to. For example, my Point pairs nicely with this Steven Stamkos:

...which I bought years ago for about $200. Would I buy a Brayden Point SPA for that amount today? Nope.

I could have sold the Stamkos for about a thousand during the pandemic. But I held onto the card because I like it. Same reason why I got the Point instead of a Mikko Rantanen or Charlie McAvoy.

Now that Stamkos has fled one tax shelter state for another, Point may score more points. Perhaps Point will have a 100-point season for Tampa (something Stamkos only did once.) Or perhaps those points will go to Tampa's big-ticket acquisition Jake Guentzel instead. The point is, even if I double my investment there's a good chance I won't cash out.

I also picked up another graded card. This would have been covered by eBay sales if I'd bought a cheaper copy of the Point - or if some of my cards had sold just one day earlier.

Oh my... what was the point of mummifying this slab in blue painter's tape? Let's unwrap this mess...

This is more than sufficient considering the mailer is already padded.

He's free! Well, not quite..

I'd sold a 1972 Topps Johnny Bench earlier this year and made a mental note to pick out another '70s single of the 'GOAT!' (as the seller notes on the listing and the blue tape.) This '76 image is my favorite by far, and I was thrilled to win the auction for under $40.

Since I had to pay for this out of pocket, I now have about $55 in eBay sales to spend on something else. Perhaps another Young Guns rookie card (or two) ..or perhaps I'll save up more cash until I have enough for another GOAT.

Is there a current sports star that you feel is underrated/undervalued in the hobby?

Thanks for reading, and have a great weekend!


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