He's Still a Penguin to Me, Damnit: Tom Barrasso

Here's an example of when a team hit, kind of isn't a team hit. When I first started following hockey, and firmly established  the Penguins as my favorite team, Tom Barrasso was the guy in net. At the time I was 12 years old, and living in Texas, so I didn't know a ton about hockey, but what I did know was that the had Lemieux, they had Jagr, and they just won two Stanley Cups with Barrasso in net.

What I didn't know at the time, was that before joining the Penguins, Barrasso actually exploded onto the scene as a rookie in 1983-84, not with the Penguins, but with the Buffalo Sabres. In that season, Barrasso not only picked up the Calder trophy as the league's rookie if the year, but also the Vezina Trophy as the league's best goaltender, after posting a 26-12-3 record, with a 2.84 goals against average and a .893 save percentage.

I picked up this great two-color jersey card of Barrasso from 2010 ITG Decades 1980s, which commemorates his stellar rookie season. The card is limited to just 100 copies, and the nice thing here, as is the case with a lot of ITG's cards, is that the jersey swatch matches the team referenced in the photo. Now, the jersey may not actually be from his rookie season, but it is nice that they went with a Sabres jersey, instead of one of him from his time with the Penguins, Senators, Maple Leafs, or Hurricanes.

I know this card lists him as a Sabre, as it should, but to me, he'll always be a Penguin, and this card will find a very welcome space right at the beginning (alphabetically speaking, at least) of my Pittsburgh Penguins hits collection.