Rich Clune was a player who wore his heart on his sleeve on the ice and worked his way from NHL castoff to fan favorite across two of the darker seasons in recent Predators history.
Clune was claimed on waivers by the Nashville Predators during the 2012-2013 NHL lockout. He played in 47 games for the club in 2012-2013 and another 58 in 2013-2014.
He fought 28 times across those two NHL seasons.
The agitator was signed to a two-year, 1.7 million dollar contract by the Preds prior to the 2014-2015 season.
When Barry Trotz was fired and Peter Laviolette replaced him as head coach for the 2014-2015 season, Clune saw ice time in just one NHL game for Laviolette prior to being put on waivers and sent to Milwaukee.
Despite being a fan favorite, he never played for the Preds again.
Clune wore this nicely beat up White Set 1 game worn jersey throughout the first half of the 2013-2014 season. It was worn in 13 games from October 3rd, 2013 to December 19th, 2013.
He scored just 1 goal and 1 assist in those 13 games, although the one goal was against Henrik Lundqvist and the New York Rangers.
The Toronto native fought 5 times in this jersey with tilts against Zenon Konopka (10/22), Daniel Carcillo (11/2), Adam Pardy (11/8), Matt Martin (11/12), and Tom Wilson (12/7).
Rich Clune’s jersey has several repairs and stick and puck marks throughout.
The left sleeve has four repairs, three of which are below the elbow. Two of those repairs are quite large. The fourth large repair is next to the sleeve #6 and there are stick/puck marks all around the sleeve numbers on that left sleeve. There is also a nice burn/slash mark through the sleeve #6.
We find multiple repairs on the right sleeve, including a good sized cluster of multiple repairs below the elbow. There is a stick/puck mark in the narrow white band below the yellow band that encircles the elbow area.
On the front of the shirt there are a few stick/puck marks and some loose threading in the neck area. The front fight strap is also clearly visible from the outside and shows up in several photos of Clune throughout the season.
The back of the shirt is mostly clean with a few scattered stick/puck marks that are primarily just above the back #1.
This jersey has an interesting lineage in that it has MeiGray tagging for 2014-2015 and a MeiGray serial number for 2014-2015 as well, despite being a 2013-2014 White Set 1 jersey.
The LOA states that it was worn in 2013-2014 and recycled for his brief time with the Predators in 2014-2015 under Laviolette, but it is not reflected on the population report.