Ultra Retro

Back during the 2012-13 season, Upper Deck included a 25-card insert set in their Fleer Retro release that payed homage to 1992-93 Fleer Ultra.  Those early '90s Ultra releases have held up well in terms of design over the years, and are a favorite of many collectors of that decade to this day, myself included.

I have the entire insert set, and figured it would be fun to feature them in a post where we see where these guys are at seven years later.  Here we go...

Ryan Getzlaf has spent his entire NHL career with the Ducks, and is signed with them through the 2021-22 season.  Last year was an off-year for Ryan as far as personal stats go, but the team overall had a poor season to be fair.

I won't show the backs for all of these, but here's one so that you get the idea.  Pretty faithful to the set that inspired it, same as the fronts.

Patrice Bergeron has continued to be an absolute stud two-way, number one center in Boston.  Led the team all the way to a crushing Game 7 home loss in the Stanley Cup Finals this past summer.  Like a fine wine, he seems to be improving with age, and set career highs in both assists and points last year in his age 33 season, despite missing significant time.  Already a lock for the HOF.

Tyler Seguin was infamously shipped out of town to Dallas a few years back.  Despite playing just about point-per-game hockey with the Stars, the team has been unable to find much post-season success in Tyler's time there.

Jeff Skinner settled right in and breathed new life into the Sabres franchise after a long run in Carolina, netting 40 goals for the first time in his career last year for Buffalo.

Another guy who had a career year last year, Jonathan Toews appeared in all 82 games for Chicago and set new best marks in goals, assists and points!

Ditto for his teammate Patrick Kane.  While the Blackhawks disappointed on the whole last year, Kane blazed his way to an impressive 110-point effort, the high water mark for his career to date as well.

Gabriel Landeskog achieved career highs in goals, assists and points last year also.  This is getting to be a theme!

The only player in the set who did not appear in the NHL last season, having taken his talents to Russia following the 2015-16 season.

Now with the New York Islanders...

Still with the Oilers, playing second fiddle to Connor McDavid at center.  Set career highs in goals, assists and points last year.

Taylor Hall, draft-mate of Tyler Seguin, is now with the Devils.  After winning the Hart Trophy in 2017-18, he disappointingly missed a huge chunk of time due to injury last year.

Still with the Kings, and signed through what will be his age 34 season in 2020-21...

The Canadiens have locked up their number one netminder all the way through 2025-26, which will be Carey's age 38 season.  Yikes!

This is interesting, here's the player who went to Edmonton in the trade that brought Taylor Hall to New Jersey.  He's also probably the least-known player in this set.  He was taken #4 overall in the 2011 entry draft, so it makes some sense for Larsson to be included here.  Still, he finished last season a -28 with Edmonton, ouch...

You'd have to be living under a rock to have missed the fact that Tavares is playing north of the border with the Leafs now.  Despite being a Bruins fan, Toronto is a team I'm highly interested in watching this coming season.

Nashville's stalwart between the pipes for well over a decade now.  Vezina winner and generally recognized as one of the top netminders in the league year after year.

Now with the Sharks!

Zach Parise is still with the Wild, after spending the first few years of his NHL career with New Jersey.  A really good 2019-20 season could see him top the 400 career goal and 400 career assist plateaus.

Claude Giroux was one of my favorite players in the league for years after he first debuted.  He's been able to stay remarkably healthy, and has already racked up 762 career points entering his age 32 season here...

Malkin hasn't been nearly as healthy, missing at least a handful of games or more per year every season for the past decade now.  Nonetheless, he'll be joining the 400-goal club early in the 2019-20 season here, and has already surpassed 1,000 career points.

Now with the Vegas Golden Knights!

Not much introduction needed here, arguably the most well-known hockey player of the 21st century?  Certainly top three anyway...

Like Patrice Bergeron, Steven Stamkos started his career as a full-time NHL player at age 18.  Feels like he's been around forever already, but the coming season is still just his age 29 season.  Amazingly, despite four 90-point campaigns, including a 98-point effort last year, he has yet to top 100 points in any one season to date.  Future HOFer, assuming he doesn't nosedive statistically over these next few seasons.

Dion Phaneuf is the only other player in the set (Pavel Datsyuk) who may have skated in his final NHL game.  We're just days away from the start of the NHL season, and as far as I know he's still a free agent at the time of this post.

We'll close it out with the best pure goal-scoring sniper in the last couple of decades, and one of the best ever.  Now that he's got a championship under his belt, it will be even more enjoyable to see just how far Alex can climb in the all-time goal scoring ranks before he hangs up the skates.  It's not impossible that with the right amount of luck he could challenge Gretzky's record, which was almost unthinkable even five or ten years ago.

Well, that's a wrap for today.  I hope you enjoyed this look back at an interesting insert set inspired by the junk wax era of my youth.  NHL hockey is right around the corner, and I can't wait.

Thanks as always for stopping by!