Playoff Push - Lightning Practice plus autos

Had a rare weekday off so me and the wife slept in and went to check out the Lightning practice at 11am about 10 minutes from my house. 

It was great to be so close for free.

I scored 2 pucks that flew over the boards that my son insisted on smelling. 

Victor Hedman seen here looked healthy as did Ryan Callahan (first picture) they've both missed time so they'll provide a boost for the Detroit series. 

Here's a shot of the team right before most of them headed in listening to Coach Cooper. 

Nikita Nesterov signed one of the pucks for me.  Love his aggression on defense, he and Marchessault are the only shoot first players we have.

Nikita Kucherov signed one of his cards I brought for me. 

My favorite part of the practice was that Jonathan Drouin was the last guy on the ice long after everybody else including the coaches hit the showers. He even picked up all the pucks afterwards. 

He then came over and signed for all the fans and posed for pictures as well. It was great to get his auto and see with my own eyes he's not the jackass his agent made him look like earlier this season. Really seems like a good kid and I hope he can stay hot in the playoffs. 

Angus Sends a Big Ol' Box of Everything

Angus from Dawg Day Cards told me a while back he had "some" Lightning cards to send me a couple weeks back..

Then this showed up from the Great White North. It had a little bit of everything inside but let's start with the aforementioned Lightning. 

This on card auto of Killorn is my first of his numbered /199. The Bolts wrapped up thier regular season last night with an ugly 5-2 loss to Montreal who like every other Canadian club missed the playoffs. 

Angus also sent this sweet sticker-graph of Tyler Johnson who unfortunately got hurt last night. Hopefully it's nothing serious as the Lightning are already banged up. 

Love this red refractor Stamkos card who unfortunately had surgery to remove a blood clot and is out anywhere from 1-3 months. Callahan, Hedman and Kucherov are banged up as well and Stralman our best defender is out with a broken leg. Jo Drouin has come up and scored twice in 2 games so hopefully he can get hot and make up for the loss of Stamkos.

Parallel action here with a pair of Palats.

Vasi probably played his last game of the year last night unless Bishop gets hurt in the playoffs (again). He let in some soft goals last night in Montreal but is one of the better backups in the league in my opinion. Ben Bishop will determine how far this team goes in the playoffs. 

Angus also sent a bunch of Falcons cards including these of the "Big 3" on offense.

This Jake Matthews auto he had pulled himself. This is my 2nd auto of his but this one is much shinier and nicer than my other one.

Love this mini auto of Tevin Coleman, I've actually bid on this exact card a few times but have always fallen short. Thanks for knocking this one off Angus!

Nice and shiny relic of former running back Jerious Norwood.

This is where the package went into a awosome 90's tailspin with  a little bit of everything. Absolutely love this Jamal card.

Told you it was a little bit of everything - phone cards, acetate, tie-dye. You name it.

A whole bunch of Andersons, I can never get enough kicker cards. 

6 new Deions for the PC!

Make that 7! How did I not have this one?

Angus also included some more Bravos including these needs for the team sets.

Thanks again for all the great cards Angus. I just got back from a weekend trip to see the Braves, while the results of the games weren't great I still had a great time and came home to 3 trade packages to blog about! Thanks for reading and GO LIGHTNING!