Back Stories: Statistically Speaking

 

"Jaromir played in both the world junior and senior championships. He led Kladno in goals and points and was the first Czech player to attend an NHL draft without having to defect. He was the fifth player drafted in 1990. Even though Jaromir was the youngest to suit up for an NHL game this season, he scored three game-winning goals (three of the team's five at that point) in Pittsburgh's first 12 games. Pittsburgh moved the left-handed shot to right wing. Jaromir's an accurate shooter, converting 21 percent of his chances in the early going."

The Jagr story is a good one. Pro Set doesn't really paint the whole picture here with the line about not defecting because it wasn't really that simple. In a nutshell, Jaromir left Czechoslovakia to join the Penguins after being drafted but failed to notify the Czech hockey officials of his sudden departure. He was already under contract to play with the Poldi Kladno team and had one year remaining on that deal. But seeing that he signed that deal before he was 18, the Penguins asked the NHL to nullify the contract so he could be signed to the NHL. It's a great story that I'll leave for a later date.

Everyone has seen this card by now. Probably 100 times at least. You may even own 100 of these. As we all know, there's no shortage of 1990-91 Pro Set hockey cards in the world. Most collector's know that 1990-91 Pro Set was riddled with spelling mistakes, errors, misprints, and printing defects. The Jaromir Jagr rookie card is no exception to that phenomenon. 

The most common version of this card shows an alignment issue on the back in the stat box toward the top of the card. Where it lists the stat headers of GP, G, A PTS, PIM, the line is shifted to the left, causing the numbers below to be skewed. The vast majority of the Jagr RC's you find out in the wild will display the back this way. The more "rare", if you want to call it that, version is the corrected, aligned version you see here. I probably have at least a dozen of the error version of the card but for some reason, have never pinned down the corrected copy. This card arrived in a #mailday from my pal John Malone (@BugsyMalone_17)...along with a host of other fanciful goodies I'll probably also use for these posts.

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Back Stories: Woolley Bully

"Jason came over from Florida to join Pittsburgh during the 1996-97 season, his sixth year in the league. He was originally selected by Washington in the third round of the 1989 NHL entry draft. Woolley won a silver medal with Canada at the 1992 Olympics."

Jason was on that rag-tag expansion "Rat" Panthers team that eliminated the Penguins from the playoffs just one year earlier before getting traded to Pittsburgh. The Penguins also received Stu Barnes in the deal, sending Chris Wells to Florida in exchange. 

He was on the 1992 Team Canada squad at the Olympics as the card notes. At 20 years old, he left Michigan State after his junior year, making the Olympic roster after four months of tryouts. What the card fails to mention is that he has the distinction of being the first Canadian to score in an Olympic shootout. 

Oh, and you remember the "skate in the crease" goal by Brett Hull in the Buffalo/Dallas Stanley Cup? He had a front row seat to that. After only 57 games for Pittsburgh, he was traded to Buffalo for a 1998 5th round pick (which turned out to be Rob Scuderi).

This #mailday card comes from the 1997-98 Pacific Crown Collection set. This one is the "ice blue" parallel version of the base card. The card is number #279 in the set. Fun fact about this set, card #66 is missing and wasn't printed. Coincidentally (or the complete opposite), Mario Lemieux doesn't appear on the set checklist. On April 5, 1997, he announced his retirement due to the lingering health problems he faced. In 2001-02, Pacific would later rectify the missing card by including it in their flagship release.  

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Back Stories: A Case of the Kasparaitis'es'is

"The trade that brought defenseman Darius Kasparaitis from the Islanders to Pittsburgh last season instantly stabilized the Penguins blueline and provided the club with one of the NHL's most-agitating physical players."

Over 30 years ago, Darius Kasparaitis was a household name in Pittsburgh that equated to thoughts of anger, disappointment, rage, and wishes of ill will. You need only to look at game 6 of the 1992-93 Division semifinal if you don't believe the torment he instilled in both the players and the fans (and then look to David Volek...stupid David Volek in game 7).

Fast forward three years and that anger and rage morphed into acceptance, excitement, and the proverbial hockey hug from the city, when Kasper was traded to the Penguins. For the next six seasons, Darius became a fan favorite, not for his offensive prowess (he had 15 goals the entire time in the Burgh) but his tough and gritty play. Before being traded to Colorado in 2002, DK logged 661 penalty minutes!

This #mailday card is from the 1997-98 Upper Deck set. It's numbered #391 as part of the base set and is from the subset "Physical Force" that was in Series 2 that year.  It's super shiny with that "black diamond"-type finish so it's hard to not get a glare on the photo. Other players featured in the Physical Force subset included Darren McCarty, Matthew Barnaby, Derian Hatcher and HOFers Chris Chelios, Chris Pronger, and Scott Stevens among others.

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Back Stories: With Arms Wide Op...Sven

"As an extremely talented defenseman who is seldom caught out of position, Sven's style of play is reminiscent of NHL great Larry Robinson. Possessing both superb skating skills and a long reach, Sven was undeniably a steal as the third pick of the Pittsburgh Penguins in this years NHL entry draft. Undeniably, Butenschon's outstanding talent gives him a great future in the Penguin organization"

Whew! By today's hockey card standards, that's a lot to be printed on the back of a card. But it's true. The Penguins did have high hopes for the Itzehoe, Germany/Winnipeg d-man. He was drafted 57th overall in 1994, played two more seasons with the Brandon Wheat Kings and then played another year on the Penguins AHL team, the Cleveland Lumberjacks. 

Problem is that when you have such high praise and expectation, rarely does it work out. Especially for defenseman. He appeared in all of 33 games with Pens over the better part of five seasons and was really only ever an injury call up. He never recorded more than 17 games in one NHL season for the Pens, with his best performance in the organization coming in Wilkes-Barre in 1999-00, where he picked up 19 goals and 40 points. That got him the "A" for the following season. He was eventually traded to the Oilers (for Dan LaCouture), who then dealt him to the Islanders in 2002.  All in all, from a longevity standpoint, he has over 800 games under his belt between the AHL, NHL and DEL.

These four cards came in the same #mailday package which is both weird (that someone would have four together), and awesome at the same time. These are from the 1994 Signature Rookies Tetrad set. That was a multi-sport set that Signature Rookies put out and sold both retail and hobby. Each pack had six cards and there was one autograph in every pack. Back then, that was crazy considering other manufacturers were only getting into the infant stages of regularly putting autographs in products. 

The base set of these had a print run of 45,000 and were all Roman Numeral numbering up to 118, or I suppose, CXVII. High numbers included the Titans subset (#'d to 10,000), 119-130 and the Top Prospects subset (#'d to 20,000), #131-134. Sven here is number CIV in the auto set and these are hand numbered out of 7,750. The "7,750" is actually printed in gold foil while each card has it's number written in blue ink along with the signature.

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Back Stories: Kapanen "the Lesser"

"You have received a trading card autographed by Kasperi Kapanen in the presence of a representative of The Upper Deck Company or provided, and certified as to it's authenticity, by Kasperi Kapanen. Enjoy your autograph card!" Signed -- The Richard P. McWilliam Family

Ok, so I know that's not really a story on the back of this card but since this is a mailday post, I gotta work with what I have, right? 

Kapanen was always an enigma for the Penguins if you ask me. Each time he was with the organization, he was expendable. They spent a 1st round pick on him in 2014 just to trade him to the Maple Leafs the following summer. Just as he was looking to have solid 20-30 point regular potential, the Pens picked him back up. After a decent, but shortened, season, he followed that up with nothing but disappointment. Failure on his part, management's part, coaches' part, probably all three for sure, but he just wasn't used the way he needed to be. He was claimed off waivers by the Blues back in February of 2023 looking to bolster some scoring capability. He finished that season with 14 points in his last 23 games so it wasn't completely horrible. However, he finished the 2023/24 season with six goals and 22 points. I won't even bring up his off-ice issues he's struggled with either.  

But somehow, someway, I've always had a soft spot for Mr. Kapanen. Maybe it's that I feel he still has untapped potential. Maybe it's that I always want my teams #1 pick to be a success. Maybe it's because I used to watch his dad play in the NHL and have always had the expectation of that same level of staying power, completeness, toughness, and professionalism.

 

_________________________ Like what you read? Have a comment? Be sure to leave one below. Check out TheRealDFG on Twitter @therealdfg. Be sure to check out the latest #PuckJunkPodcast. Just search and subscribe on Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Spotify, iHeartRadio, Stitcher, Podchaser, PocketCasts, Castbox, Castro, Overcast, TuneIn or SoundCloud.

Back Stories: Practice Jerseys Make Perfect?

"Robitaille continued his goal-scoring ways in 1994-95, finishing second on the Pens."

I know I haven't posted one of these in awhile. Why? Because they are reserved for maildays and since I haven't had a mailday, well you get where I'm going. But this was still laying on my desk as a "mix up" in a COMC order from a few weeks ago so I thought I would share it now.  This comes from the 1995-96 Collector's Choice set. 

After spending his first eight seasons with the Los Angeles Kings, Luc was traded to the Penguins in July 1994, in exchange for Rick Tocchet and a 2nd Round pick in the 1995 draft. If you're keeping score, that pick turned out to be Pavel Rosa, a solid Czech winger that never really panned out in the NHL. 

In his only season with the Penguins, Robitaille did, in fact, finish second in goals in 94-95 (23), right behind Jaromir Jagr (32). He finished the season with 42 points as well. But isn't that low for the future HOFer? Absolutely. Remember, the 1994-95 season was a short one because the players were locked out by the owners until the first of the year. The NHL only played a 48 game season (plus playoffs) from January 20th - June 24th that year. Robitaille played in 46 of those, hitting his 400th goal milestone that year after returning from a 2-gamer for a high sticking incident in New Jersey.

 

 

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