Shiny Prizm Hockey

 

Basketball and football card collectors (not to mention retail flipper guys) love Panini Prizm, and it seems to be one of the most popular sets in those sports year in and year out.  When it comes to hockey though, there was only one true Panini Prizm set released before Panini lost their license to produce NHL trading cards, and that was the 2013-14 set you see above.

True, there were some Prizm cards released as part of the Rookie Anthology set the year prior, but this 2013-14 release is it when it comes to a standalone Prizm hockey set proper.  The cards are absolutely gorgeous if you're a fan of shiny like I am, and the parallels have that fantastic Panini etching, a practice that Topps unfortunately abandoned for its refractors long ago.

I've been making an effort to pick up some parallels of star players, HOFers, or even just members of the Hall of Very Good from the set, before they become the latest thing to skyrocket in price.  Thankfully all of the cards I'm showing here today, including my first two Silver Prizm parallels of David Krejci and Ilya Kovalchuk here, cost mere pocket change on Sportlots.  Even in these crazy times for our hobby, there are still outlets for cheap, satisfying pick-ups to keep us going if we look hard enough.

I like the colored parallels even more than the silvers.  This Patrice Bergeron Red is so fantastic that I bought both copies the seller had available at 75 cents!  Bergeron, Chara, Marchand, Krejci and Tuukka Rask are generational greats in the history of this franchise, and along with sniper David Pastrnak are having another great campaign here in the 2020-21 season.

This generation's "Little Ball of Hate" is really filling in the shoes of the original namesake, the great Pat Verbeek.  His next goal will be the 300th of his NHL career, so he has a legit shot to top the 500-goal mark, just like Verbeek did.  Grabbed three copies of this one, and they look really nice all in a row in a Z-Folio.

Already had a copy of this Lucic, but grabbed a second because the price was right.  "Luc" has bounced around some in recent years, but he had some really exciting seasons in Boston as a goal-scoring bruiser that I will always remember fondly.

Heavy Bruins theme here with the Red parallels, but like I said this was the group that won a Cup for Boston and was a regular playoff contender.  I saw this particular iteration of the team play in person so many times during this stretch, so I enjoy picking up cards of all these guys.  Grabbed a pair of this Red Krejci card.

I swear I'm not an Ilya Kovalchuk super-collector or anything like that, he was just a really solid player that happened to be available cheaply is all.  Besides, how fantastic do these Red parallels look on New Jersey Devils cards?  Fantastic enough that I bought three of these, that's how fantastic.

Ditto for the Ottawa Senators.  Mika Zibanejad (whose hair is now much longer than what you see here) has been slumping a bit for the Rangers this season, but this is an amazing looking piece of cardboard.

Hall-of-Famer Martin St. Louis for under a dollar?!?!  I'll take two!  Hell, I'd have taken ten at that price, but alas, there were only two available.

One-time Boston Bruin, one of the top scorers of his era, and potential future HOFer?  Sure!  Snagged a pair of these for the Z-Folio as well.

The Capitals look absolutely stunning on these.  Very high on my list of hobby goals is to acquire a Red Alex Ovechkin, but I have literally yet to see a single one available at any price point in the many weeks I've been searching.  If you have one, I will pay handsomely in trade or Paypal credit!  For now, happy to have a pair of these Backstrom cards, featuring one of the premier set-up men in the business, and the man who has assisted on many an Ovechkin goal over the years.

Hall of Fame for Getzlaf?  Not sure, but certainly the Hall of Very Good, and the face of the Ducks franchise for about a decade and a half now.  I happily grabbed three of these for the combined price of less than $2.

Another guy who has sort of been the face of a franchise since he came into the league, or shortly thereafter.  Only picked up one of these but in retrospect probably should have bought a trio.  Benn has never won a Stanley Cup, but did pick up an Art Ross Trophy back in 2015.

Pleased to land this Joe Thornton, the man who currently has the 14th most career points in NHL history.  The only reason I'd be excited to see Toronto win a Stanley Cup this year would be so that Jumbo Joe could hoist it at last.

With the Thornton card in my order, it made sense to pair it with his longtime teammate Joe Pavelski, so I threw this one in too.

Would have been cool to pick up a Red of each of the Sedin twins, but since the seller had just this card I ended up with two Henriks instead!  Obviously this one would look better on Blue, or even more so Green, but this is the card I ended up with for now.

Your eyes may be sore from looking at all that bright red holo foil, so let's calm things down with a trio of soothing blue cards before we call this a post, shall we?

Well, what do you know, I did land a Blue Sedin.  Yeah, that looks way better with the Canucks colors than the Red does.  Again, Henrik was the only Sedin brother available in blue, a Daniel collector must have cleared out his inventory before I arrived on the site.

Once again we have Ilya Kovalchuk.  Looks like I'm well on my way to a rainbow of this card.  This one, and the final card up next, are actually Blue Pulsar parallels.  If memory serves, these were exclusive to Prizm product purchased at Wal-Mart.  They seem to be some degree rarer than the standard Blue parallels, anyway.

Finally, we have what may be my favorite card of this entire order, a Blue Pulsar Patrice Bergeron.  One of the under-rated players of the modern era, and one of the greatest ever to don a Bruins sweater.  Very, very happy to have this card in my Prizm hockey collection.

So there you have it, a bunch of really shiny and really colorful hockey cards that I managed to find on the cheap, even during these insane times in the hobby.  If you have any of these Prizm hockey parallels available to trade let me know, and if not thanks as always for stopping by my little corner of the internet!

Killer Krejci - Let's Go Bruins!

Just one card tonight, getting ready to watch the Stanley Cup Finals kick off shortly!  The Boston Bruins will be taking on the St. Louis Blues, and I'll be on the edge of my seat hoping that Boston can bring home their second Stanley Cup during my lifetime as a fan.

I'd be particularly pleased to see my favorite player, David Krejci, raise his second Cup in a week or two here.  I used to be a hardcore Krejci collector, but realized many years back that modern player collecting wasn't really my thing.  I sold off a couple of my nicer Krejci cards to fun a graded Mario Lemieux RC (which I don't regret in the least), but I held on to this beauty and never managed to post it until today:

Oh yeah!  I'm not a big "look at that sick patch!" guy but...look at that patch!  Three different colors and some nice, thick stitching there.  These Rookie Materials relic cards were actually found in the Upper Deck base set in 2007, as they've been for many years, but the patch versions are really scarce.  I'm glad I hung onto this one all these years, because looking around today I couldn't pick up a replacement even if money was no object.  This would be one of my best Krejci cards, period...

...if it weren't for the fact that the patch is "event used".  Cue the sad horns.

A nice looking card nonetheless.  I hope David and the rest of the team come out firing on all cylinders tonight following a lengthy rest after their Easter Conference Finals sweep.

Go Bruins!

Signature Sundays - Retro Krejci

Just realized I've yet to do a Signature Sundays post in the month of March, yikes!  With one last winter storm about to land in my area any minute now, a hockey card seemed most appropriate for tonight...

This '94 SP Retro Autograph is my latest cardboard signature of the guy who's been my favorite Bruin for seven or eight years now, center David Krejci.  There was a time years ago when I considered myself a Krejci player collector, but it didn't take me long to realize that type of collecting just isn't for me.  I still take a look at new Krejci cards every once in a while though, and I couldn't resist this die-cut auto based on the '94-95 SP cards I loved so much in my collecting youth.

The design is not an exact match, as these just have rounded edges on both right-side corners, whereas the original '94-95 die-cuts had sort of a long, slim "bump" that protruded from the right side of the card (the Patrick Roy in this post is an example of what I mean).  Close enough for government work though, and I love the bright, bold, on-card autograph.

Upper Deck did a great job with these.  There's a Mike Liut Whalers auto from this same subset I'd love to grab a copy of at some point if the price is right.

That's all for tonight, for those of you who live in my region of the country I hope you enjoy one last round of shoveling out tomorrow morning!

Hockey Randomness!

Today seems as good a day as any to toss up a completely random assortment of hockey cards that have come across my desk in recent weeks.  Sort of a draft folder "catch all" of stuff that didn't make it into any other posts, but cards that I think are unique enough that they're worth showing anyway.

Like the wonderful, toothless Gordie Howe card above!  I picked this one up at my local shop at least a couple of years ago now, but only just got around to scanning and adding it to my inventoried collection.  That's a shame too, because I'd have to say this is one of the greatest images to grace any Whalers card in my entire collection.  I'd love to bust a box of this Parkhurst Champions set someday, it's full of awesome photographs like this and features some great on-card autos as well...

How about a couple of inserts from the height of the junk wax era?  I'm not sure why I love these obnoxious Scoring Power inserts from Flair, but I do.  I think I'm just a card or two away from completing this one, once I have them all I plan to feature the entire set in a post.  Don't worry, when the time comes I'll warn you to put your sunglasses on beforehand.

From '93-94 Ultra I've got a pair of Scoring King inserts, Pat LaFontaine...

...and Pierre Turgeon.  Funny that I ended up with these two players in the Sportlots order these came from, as I sometimes got them confused with each other when I was a kid.  May be in part due to the fact that they were traded for each other when I was around nine.  Anyway, moving on...

Vladimir Tarasenko is one of the most exciting young goalscorers in the game today.  If you're not familiar with him, just type his name into YouTube and sit back and enjoy!  He can really light the lamp with style, so I enjoy picking up a card or two of his from time to time.  I'm not sure about the design for this particular O-Pee-Chee retro parallel, but it was cheap enough anyway.

I grabbed a trio of O-Pee-Chee Metal Update cards at one point just because they were all guys I enjoyed watching play, and each was the minimum 18 cents price on Sportlots.

They don't scan so well, but they do look pretty sharp in person if you're a fan of Chrome/Metal cards.

Only after scanning them in did I realize the Chris Chelios is actually a "Metal X" parallel rather than a standard Metal card like the other two.  There's something wrong with the hobby when you have to scan a card in to realize what it is you're even holding.  Either way, cool Chelios.

I've always enjoyed the Canvas inserts from Upper Deck, but recently I've really started tracking down many more of them for my collection.  Aside from the faux-texture look, there are some awesome photos in this insert set year after year.  You could look at this one a dozen times and easily miss the sliver of puck at the very bottom of the shot.  A definite goal for Kane there!

A classic celebration shot of a guy who at times can be one of the more prolific scorers in the NHL.

You have to love a photo where not one part of the player or his stick is making any contact with the ice.  20-25 years ago a photo like this would have blown my mind, nowadays it's not all that uncommon.  I suppose we have Upper Deck to thank for that.

Given that Jaromir Jagr is quickly moving up the ranks of the best players to ever wear skates, I've been working on acquiring some more of his cardboard from his very short stint in Boston.  This Red parallel was a retail exclusive in 2013-14 Score, at least I think it was.  Either way, I don't see them around very often and I'm happy I landed this one.

I got a nice sticker to go with it, too!  I won't be peeling this and adhering it to anything though.

Here's a great card from SP Authentic.  Upper Deck seems to think that only 4-5 guys played for the Whalers over the years.  For a while there it was Ron Francis, and the past couple seasons it seems like Mike Liut has a ton of Whalers cardboard.  I'm not complaining though, I'm grateful that any Whalers are making modern-day checklists.

More Canvas!  Big Z has certainly lost a step or two, but is it really that surprising given his age and mileage over the years?  There's definitely a strong minority here locally that is crying for Chara to be dealt by the trade deadline.  Not sure how I feel about that, guess it depends on what the return would look like...

Here's another guy who's looked less than stellar at times this year.  The problem is he's much younger than Chara, and signed for many years to come.  In all honesty though, the defensive corps is a much larger issue than goaltending is with the present team.

Possibly my favorite card in this entire post, another fantastic addition to my collection courtesy of SP Authentic.  What an awesome shot featuring two of the greatest players ever celebrating in their bright red team Canada sweaters.  In my humble opinion this is one of the nicest photos to appear on a hockey card in the last few years.

Also from SP Authentic are these great retro inserts that pay homage to the '94-95 SP set.  I don't think I'd ever pursue this entire set, but I did grab a trio of players that are significant to me.

Another great late-career card of the guy who's now the #3 all-time goal scorer in NHL history!

See what I mean about Liut?  Still a nice card though, love those brown Cooper pads.

Here's another nice Canvas card, where we see a New Jersey Devil getting crushed by Erik Karlsson.  This one came out of the lone retail tin of UD Series 1 that I picked up this year.

So did this Seguin game jersey card.  Not a bad pull, but it pales in comparison to the McDavid Young Guns I was lucky enough to land.  I'm happy to ship Tyler here out to one of my trading partners if anyone wants it?

The '95-96 Rink Collection parallels aren't nearly as nice looking as the season prior, but I was still happy to land Ron Francis here for just a quarter.  It's borderline criminal how little hobby love Ron gets.

I was really, really bummed when Boston dealt Dougie Hamilton at last year's draft, and given the state of the team's defensive unit this year I can't help but think it would have been a big plus having Dougie back there.  Then again, the Flames haven't exactly been lighting the Western Conference on fire so who knows I guess.

Numbered to 299.  Cost $1.  Really no other reason that I made this purchase, I don't even like how the card looks, honestly.

I really enjoyed the 2013-14 Score hockey set, though I doubt I'll ever complete it given how enormous the checklist is.  I do have a couple of notable RCs to share though in Dougie Hamilton...

...and Calder winner Jonathan Huberdeau!  I really love the makeup of the Panthers team, and if the Bruins can't win it all this year (which looks to be the case) I'd certainly love to see Florida hoist the Cup.

Last card for today, we started off the post with a toothless subject so let's end with one!  Tell me that is not one of the coolest baby photos you've ever seen?