Derek Morris held down the back end for the Phoenix Coyotes for 10 of his 16 seasons in the NHL.
He arrived in the desert a year or two after the Coyotes began their slide into the bottom of the league, was part of the 2009-2012 teams that made the playoffs in three straight seasons and the Western Conference Final in 2012, and then saw the team begin to slide into irrelevancy again by the time he retired and the team renamed itself as the Arizona Coyotes.
Morris skated in 1107 career games and tallied 92 points and 332 assists.
In 2006-2007, he played in all 82 games scoring 6 goals and 19 assists while skating 20 minutes per night.
Derek Morris wore this red set 2 game worn jersey in the second half of the 2006-2007 season. The exact set dates are unknown, and unfortunately this is not one of the jerseys Stan Wilson wrote the dates on inside the crest.
It has relatively light wear with board burns visible in both sleeves and some faint stick marks on the right sleeve and one dark stick mark near the wrist of the left sleeve. The right side of the jersey has a decent sized unrepaired hole from the middle white band around the waist going downward. There are also a few picks/pulls.
The jersey has numerous loose threads in the nameplate, as well as one long one on the right sleeve #5 and another coming down from the Decade in the Desert patch.
These Decade patched gamers are pretty rare finds, particularly of popular or important players. This particular style of jersey is my favorite of the brick red/white home/away era from 2003-2020.
While this is one of my favorite styles with a very rare patch, I picked this up because Derek Morris is actually a pretty solid addition for my local Arizona hockey collection.
Since retiring, Morris has helped coach players in youth hockey here in the desert.
He currently coaches 14U with the Arizona Bobcats, and also helps out at local camps and clinics, and my own son has been on the ice with him several times.