The Lightning Card of The Week -Tik Toc The PC is

So much red in this card.

2008-09 ITG Between the Pipes Future Stars Dustin Tokarski #15

Well, it looks like another personal collection bites the dust.  I woke up to the news on Twitter that the Lightning had traded goaltending prospect Dustin Tokarski to the Montreal Canadians for Cedric Desjardins - the once and future Tampa Bay net minder.  Not exactly the type of news I wanted to see at the crack of 9:30am (hey I worked till 1:30 last night).

Most people have no idea of who either of those players are, heck to most hockey fans it's a minor league deal involving a couple of at-best back-up goaltenders.  For me, however, it's yet another waste of eBay money and trades.  I have a small (about 20 cards) collection for the former 5th round pick, but unlike my other PC's this one was speckled with some higher-end cards.  That's the joy of collecting a prospect for a sunbelt team, I guess. It's easy to pick up decent cards for rather cheap prices.

It's funny, when a favorite player is traded it feels like their career is ending.  With Tokarski that's hardy the case. At only 23-years-old he definitely has more than enough time to establish himself as a NHL-caliber goalie. For some reason his progress in Tampa has stalled.  He had been usurped in the organizational rankings by Jaroslav Janus and Russian prospect Andrey Vasilevskiy and his inconsistent play seem to frustrate management.  General Manager Steve Yzerman alluded to the fact that it was time for a scenery change for Tokarski when discussing the move with the press.

It also appears that Mr. Yzerman wasn't comfortable with either Janus or Tokarski as an option should the Lightning need them this season.  Despite having less actual game experience in the NHL than Tokarski (2 games to 3) his age and experience lend to Desjardins an edge should the big league club need him.  There is also the fact that Coach Boucher is familiar with the 27-year-old from his days in Hamilton.

I don't follow the minor leagues much, but it seems Syracuse was struggling with getting consistency in the net (seems to be an organizational problem) and this move will hopefully shore that up. That Crunch seem to be a team in flux especially with all of the recent call prospect call ups.

Hopefully, the storyline stays in Syracuse as that means all is well between the pipes in Tampa.  As for Tokarski it is a chance for him to start over in a new organization (although one where he is stuck behind a  guy named Carey Price). Wherever he has gone he has won, from juniors to the national team to the AHL.  We'll see if that continues.

As for my collection, I think I'll hold on to it for now (unless, of course, some Canadians collector comes along with an offer I can't refuse) and maybe add the occasional Tampa-clad card to it.  I doubt I'll replace him with another player in the personal collection folder, especially since I won't be able to get my hands on any Cory Conacher Lightning cards until next season.

Dustin Tokarski Gets The Call

An extremely bad Photoshop I made earlier in the season for Twitter (based on a billboard in Norfolk)

If you’ve read any of my hockey stuff over the past year or so, you know I’m a bit of a mark for Dustin Tokarski.  Heck, he’s even one of the folks on my Personal Collection list, so you know I’m a fan.  Even back in 2010 I thought he’d be something to look forward to.That means I’m super excited about the news out of Channelside that he’s been promoted, right?  Not really.

The Tampa Bay Lightning organization hasn’t exactly been a hot bed for goaltending prospects over its 20-year history.  As a matter of fact, it’s been more like the place where young goalies go to disappear.  Every regime that has come through the Tampa Bay Area has had their “Chosen One” who would lead the team in net for the coming years. Names like Evgeny Konstantinov, Gerald Coleman, Riku Helenius and Zack Bierk (aka Sebastian Bach’s brother-in-law) have all been pitched to the fan base as a potential hot young goalie in the system.  The combined number of NHL games for them in a Lightning uniform – 31. The number of wins – 5 (all of them by Bierk).

If you look at the Lightning’s history of goaltenders that they’ve drafted, it’s not pretty.  The all-time games leader for Tampa Bay drafted goalies is Karri Ramo with 48, that is barely over a half of a season’s worth of games. Even for a relatively young franchise that’s pathetic.

Ramo did have one of the best masks in Lightning history - BRAINS!

Most likely it is because the organization has never concerned itself with using top picks to draft goaltenders. In the sixteen drafts that the Lightning have used their first round pick (they traded away their number one picks in 1999, 2002, 2003 and 2007), only once have they used it for a goaltender.  That was for Helenius in 2006 when he went 15^th overall (with Semyon Varlamov, Michal Neuvirth and Jhonas Enroth still available). Only Tyler Moss (2^nd round 1993) and Konstatinov (3^rd round 1999) have been drafted in the top 3 rounds.

With that lack of top-end talents in the prospect pool it’s no wonder that they’ve never developed an elite starting goaltender in the NHL.  They have also had a tendency to rush whichever prospects they do have through their system and throw them into the fire with horrendous teams in front of them. Ramo was 20 when he appeared in his first game, Bierk was 21 and Coleman was 20 when he appeared in two games before being shipped out to Anaheim in the Shane O’Brien deal.

Tokarski has been in the organization since 2008 when he was drafted in the 5^th round by the Bolts.  There was a lot of excitement about him early in his career as he dominated his last season in junior hockey, winning the Memorial Cup MVP and the Hap Emms Memorial Trophy as the top goaltender.  He was also the starting goaltender for Team Canada at the 2009 World Junior Ice Hockey Championships where he led them to their 5^th straight goal medal (even if his play was uneven at best).

I have this card! Well not this exact one, but one just like it!

He immediately made the jump to the AHL where he won 27 games in his first year at Norfolk while sharing playing time with Helenius and Jaroslav Janus.  Tokarski would win 21 games in 2010-11 and seem to take a step back on the prospect depth chart as Janus and newcomer Cedrick Desjardins would look like they might have higher potential.

This season, with Desjardins out of the system, the battle for the future of the organization has come down to Tokarski and Janus. After splitting time earlier in the season, Tokarski has wrestled his way to the starting job and has matched his career best with 27 wins, 8 of which have come in his last 8 starts. The Admirals are in the midst of the playoff hunt in the AHL, mostly due to the outstanding play in net by their two keepers.

Before Tuesday night’s game it looked like the plan was simple.  Despite the uneven play of Dwayne Roloson and Mathieu Garon, Tokarski would stay in Norfolk and wet his teeth on AHL playoff pressure. Roloson will most likely be gone next season and Tokarski could enter camp with the chance of battling for the number one position with Garon or any other goalie brought in by Mr. Yzerman.  The kid, he is still 23, wouldn’t be rushed nor would he waste away on the bench.

Then, at about 7:47pm EST, Garon deflected an Erik Karlson shot with his glove. In doing so he shredded his groin like our cat shreds a newspaper. Immediate thoughts on the Twitter-verse were that Mr. Yzerman would be putting a call into the league and swooping in to take Marty Turco off of waivers.  Alas, it wasn’t to be.  They waited for the diagnosis and on Wednesday morning, in the shadow of the news that Peyton Manning was being released by the Colts, announced that Tokarski was getting the call up.

How much the young netminder plays in the next 3-4 weeks hasn’t been determined yet.  With the Bolts only 4 points out of a playoff spot, one has to think that the team will rely heavily on the veteran Roloson.  There are only two sets of back-to-back games left on their schedule (March 26,27 and April 4,5) so they may try to ride him down the stretch.  However, his play has been spotty at best throughout this season so there is a slimmer of a chance that Coach Boucher will give the younger goalie a shot.

One Goalie, Six Cards, A New Collection

There are a lot of cards out there in the world.  I don’t hope to own all of them, just all of the ones with Vinny Lecavalier on them.  I know that’s never going to happen (too many 1/1 cards and not enough PowerBall money) but that doesn’t mean I can’t try.  However, lately I strayed a bit, my eyes wandered and before I knew it I had another flame to keep an eye on.

It started innocently enough a rookie card picked up in a trade, simply because the other guy knew I liked the Lightning. It wasn’t all that special (although it was shiny) and I didn’t think twice about it.  Little did I know that the seed had been planted.

 The next card found its way into my collection on purpose, an eBay purchase that featured an auto and a jersey swatch.  I told myself that I picked it up because it was cheap and I had some extra money in the PayPal account.  It meant nothing to me, I liked auto/jersey cards and Vincent’s were way overpriced.

Then it happened.  I crossed the line.  One dark, rainy night, while surfing eBay, I bought a lot.  Six cards for basically the price of two (with free shipping!)  I couldn’t resist, I bid and I won.  Three days later the cards were in my hands and I was officially a Dustin Tokarski collector.

The first four cards are what I call fodder.  They weren’t the cards I was looking for, but they look nice in the collection.

What you see above are four ITG cards from four different years that all proclaim Tokarski a “Future Star”.  I can cross the 2008 through 2011 ITG Between the Pipes Future Stars cards off of my needs list now. The 2008 and 2009 cards feature him in his Spokane Chiefs uniforms while the 2010 and 2011 show him adorned in the Norfolk Admirals colors.

All four cards are considered “pre-rookie” cards since they were either issued before his NHL debut, or in the case of the 2011 card, were issued by a company that doesn’t hold a NHL license.  Nice cards to have as filler but not the real meat of a collection.

Next up is the secondary card, the card that made bidding on the lot worth it.  The card I really wanted could have been had on its own, but when I saw it paired with this card for almost the same price I had to pull the trigger.

A 2010-11 Upper Deck Rookie Materials from series II.  “Tic” is shown in his Lightning gear on the front of the card and it includes a nice black jersey swatch.   Game used? Nope.  On the back of the card Upper Deck’s Dick P. McWilliam lets us know that the card is from a rookie photo shoot.  So this falls under “even used”.

Finally we happen upon the money card.  I perused several eBay pages trying to decide which auction I should bid on.  The ones with free shipping were too expensive, and the ones with cheap shipping were being bid up beyond what I wanted to spend.  So I switched tactics and started looking to see if I could score a lot that included this card.  Low and behold there was.  So it became mine.

A 2010-11 Upper Deck Young Guns #246.  Its the hockey card cornerstone for any player collector. If you’re building a player collection and that player has a Young Guns card you have to have it.  No if’s, ands or buts about it, get that card as soon as you can.

So that’s how a player collection is born, or at least my Tokarski collection was born.  Will it continue?  Probably, as long as he doesn’t get traded by the Lightning along with a number two pick and a prospect for Tuukka Rask.

I’m not sure if he’ll be in next year’s releases.  It seems, despite their woes, the Lightning are committed to keeping Tokarski in Norfolk for a full season. So far this season, he’s been splitting time with fellow prospect Jaroslav Janus. Tokarski is 10-6 with 2 shutouts, a 2.43 GAA and a .901 save percentage.  The numbers are solid, but not spectacular. 

At this point, the Lightning might opt for steady and not spectacular as opposed to what they’re getting from Roloson and Garon right now.  There would be a big risk calling him up.  The team in front of him is not very responsible and could lead to him getting barraged with shots.  A couple of bad outings could damage his confidence and he could join the long list of failed Lightning goaltending prospects.

He is only 22 years old, so I can wait another season for him to get called up.  In the meantime I can look forward to some more ITG cards (maybe he can make Future Stars for a 5^th straight year).