Signature Sundays - The Sutter Brothers

The Sutter brothers represent one of the most well-known families in the annals of hockey history.  A remarkable six brothers all played in the NHL (and the seventh apparently had the skill to, but simply chose a different career path).  At least one Sutter brother was playing in the league from 1976-77 through 2000-01!  The best part is that for a few seasons in the mid-80s all six were playing in the NHL at the same time.

My favorite hockey card set from last year, Panini Classics Signatures, payed homage to the siblings but for some reason included only 5 of the 6 on the checklist.  Brian, the oldest of the bunch (only brother Gary, who did not play, was older) was for some reason omitted despite a very successful career.  Anyway, I finally acquired the rest of the remaining five autographs from this great set.

I've already shown three of the brothers in previous Signature Sundays posts, Darryl...

...Rich...

...and Duane.  Duane won two Stanley Cups with the Islanders dynasty in the early '80s, and on those same two Cup teams was younger brother Brent:

I'd imagine winning a Stanley Cup with your brother must be pretty nice!  Brent (who appears to have the worst penmanship of the bunch) was probably the most successful at the NHL level.  In addition to his two championships, he played the most career games, and had the most career goals, assists and points (same for the post-season) of any of the brothers.

Last but not least is Ron, who was the highest draft pick out of the group, taken at #4 overall by the Flyers.  Ron and brother Rich played together for a three-season stretch twice in their careers, once with Philadelphia and then later again with the Blues.  Ron also played for the Sharks while Daryl was the coach!  He was the last of this generation to play at the NHL level.

I wish Panini would have included Brian on the checklist just to really make it perfect, but nonetheless it's kind of cool to get five hand-signed autographs from five brothers all in the same set.  The two new cards bring me up to 82 cards and counting now in my quest to complete this set (well, all the standard-printed autographs that is)...