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Welcome to The Real DFG's Pittsburgh Penguin Autograph Project. My goal is to eventually try and get at least one autograph of every player to lace up the skates in an NHL game for the Pittsburgh Penguins. It could have been for one game or 700 games, I will add them. Occasionally I may post cards of former players in their new team uniforms. While the goal is to get autos in Pens uni's, it isn't always possible. Since the team has been in existence since 1967, the list is pretty large. Last I checked, it was somewhere in the range of 624 different players. Currently, I sit at about 100 autographs (with some duplication). Enjoy the posts.

Tuesday, February 11, 2014

Ulf Samuelsson

What can I say about Ulf that hasn't been said already?  Well, probably a lot since I haven't really said anything about him yet since this was my first auto.

Call him a dirty player, call him a pest, call him an antagonist.  It doesn't matter what you call him because I'm sure he doesn't care.  Coming to the Pens in the big Hartford trade that also sent us Ron Francis, Ulf won his only two Stanley Cups while wearing black and gold.  He is even credited with the game winning, Cup winning, goal in 1991 vs. the North Stars.  The Pens won that game 8-0 but with only two minutes in to the first period, Ulf scored a power play goal on Jon Casey with a wrist shot from the left point.

Ulf was a physical, seek-and-destroy type defenseman and his play showed that.  He finished his career with 332 points and 2,453 penalty minutes.  Because of his physicality and eventually his credit with ending Cam Neely's career (although Neely's injury was exacerbated by a degenerative disorder that wasn't diagnosed until after he retired), Ulf is constantly labeled as a dirty player and frequently appears on many Top 10 lists of "hated" players.  I'm not one of his naysayers.  Ulf was eventually traded to the Rangers, along with Luc Robitaille, for Sergei Zubov and Petr Nedved.

This card comes from the 1995-96 Upper Deck Be A Player set.  I've shown a few from this set already before.  As you can see, this was back when the lockout was in full swing and player licenses through the NHLPA was all that could be relied on for set production (hence, no logos).  It's also technically a Rangers card but I'm gonna ignore that for now. I love the fact that this card says "Ice Wars" because that's exactly what went on when Ulf was on the ice...a WAR!

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