It's been a nice sports weekend for me as Michigan Football beat a lesser rival plus the Yankees are down two games in the World Series. So with that positivity in mind, let's continue on with the mountain of cards sent to me by
Doug of Sports Cards From the Dollar Store back in August. (Reminder: part 1 is
here.)
We're in one of the busiest sports months of the year as all four major sports are in action plus some of the college versions. Relevant tonight is that both the Red Wings and Michigan Hockey have dropped the pucks on their seasons. As a matter of fact, I got to enjoy the latter in person last weekend!
Doug sent me a big stack of cards of both teams in this box,
and those are what we'll look at tonight!
Let's start with the local pro team, one which features four players from my alma mater, all of whom appear in this post! But we'll get to the WolverWings later. Datsyuk and Fedorov are both team legends and I'm glad to bump up their collections a bit. Meahwhile, Edvinsson is a former #6 overall pick going into his third season in Motown as a good defenseman prospect.
Next, LaPointe and Lidstrom are the most familiar names here. Marty won a pair of Cups with the Wings after they took him 10th overall in 1991, and he went on to play for the Bruins, Hawks, and Sens before hanging 'em up. Plus his son currently plays for Michigan Hockey! Lidstrom, meanwhile, is a HOF defenseman who won four Stanleys with Detroit, playing his entire career in Hockeytown. He's definitely a top-five team player of mine in franchise history.
Ozzie is the biggest name here for me, another '91 draft pick who went on to success with the team. He backed up vet Mike Vernon in the playoffs in '96-'97 before getting his turn with the repeat champs the following year, then came back in 2007-08 and '08-'09, helping the team win another Cup and then coming up just short the year after. Primeau's also pretty well known as a former #3 overall pick who put up some good numbers for the team but was part of the trade that brought Brendan Shanahan to Detroit, which worked out quite well! Raymond's a much more recent guy, chosen #4 overall in 2020, and he's coming off a 31-goal campaign, so he looks to be a big part of the future. Rutherford's a goalie from way before my time--drafted by Detroit in 1969, he found his way to Pittsburgh before a trade back to Detroit (twice!) and appeared in goal in parts of 10 seasons as a Wing.
German D-man Mo Seider leads off this scan and he comes into his fourth season as a key player on the blue line. I already mentioned how Shanny joined the team, and he was a star on a team filled with them that won three Cups. Soderblom is a Swedish winger chosen in the sixth round back in 2019 who hasn't been up with the parent team since 2022-23 but remains a prospect. Veleno was a late first-rounder way back in 2018 that hasn't yet parlayed amateur success into NHL production just yet.
The last of the Wings are represented with these horizontals and one odd-sized issue. Draper's probably the best player $1 ever bought as he brought plenty of grit along with key goals to four Cup-winners. The previously seen Seider looks good on a shiny UD insert. The Captain's NHL career coincided with some great 90s stuff like Collector's Choice's Stick-Ums. And Shanny gets one more appearance courtesy of a Pacific mini.
Now we switch over to the guys in maize & blue. Boston center Johnny Beecher makes his collection debut here thanks to Doug, and the 2019 first-rounder is in his second year with that team. Beniers and Bordeleau are both relative newcomers to the NHL and it's nice to see their collections get a small bump. Cogliano (who's also seen in the next scan) won a cup with the 21-22 Avalanche and then retired after last season, his 17th in the NHL!
Three-year Wolverine Compher was a teammate of Cogliano's with Colorado and also part of that Cup team, and now I'm happy to say that he's one of four Wolverines on the Red Wings! Jets sniper Kyle Connor has been lighting the lamp since 2016 and looks primed to hit the 30-goal mark for for the seventh time in eight seasons. As for Copp...
...he's another WolverinWing, as seen in the first two cards here. It's fun when the former Ann Arbor guys head to Detroit but even better when it's captured on cardboard. Another Team Canada card of Hobey-winner Adam Fantilli gives me two of him with that team to go with a pair with Columbus. Hagelin, who won a pair of Cups with the Pens, nears the 40-card mark as well as the top-10 of my Michigan Hockey PCs. Sitting 10 cards behind him is
Canucks D-man and last year's Norris Trophy winner Quinn Hughes, whose six cards here include a very cool playing card-style item from OPC. Defenseman Matt Hunwick is next, and this trio shows him with two of his six career franchises. Then we have former Leafs winger Zach Hyman who
joined the Oilers after six seasons in Toronto and steadily put up career highs until reaching 54 goals last year plus another 16 in the playoffs for runner-up Edmonton (though he's yet to score this year). While there are no Wolverines named Jones in this package, Doug had me keeping up with the Johnsons. One is Jack, another '21-'22 Avalanche Cup-winner who's now back in his second go-round with Columbus in his 19th(!) NHL season. The other is his new teammate Kent, the 2021 fifth overall pick who's in his fourth season in the league, and has five cards to his name in my collection as opposed to almost 60 for his elder fellow Wolverine.
Wings captain Dylan Larkin was one of the most common names in this package and I loved to see that. I'm grateful that the team has his leadership as he's become somewhat similar to the guy currently in charge, Steve Yzerman, so you'll imagine how much I grinned when I noticed that my collection totals for both players are very close! He's posted 31, 32, and 33 goals the past three seasons so we'll see if his incremental improvement continues, though more importantly I'm hoping for a return to the playoffs--something he hasn't experienced since his debut in 2015-16. Madden, meanwhile, won trophies both in college and the NHL, and missed the playoffs just twice in his career, with one occasion being a cup of coffee in his league debut. Oklahoma City native Jon Merrill also played for the Devils like Madden, though their careers didn't overlap. He was a Red Wing for 36 games in 2020-21 and is now in his fourth season with Minnesota.
I don't think I need to say much about Morrison as he's long been a blog favorite and I've talked about him plenty, so I'll just mention that he's #2 in my UM hockey PCs and the only other player besides Marty Turco to hit the century mark. Next, it's fun to have a shared PC with Doug like Nystrom, who's both a Michigan alum and 2/14 baby! A guy that's not too far behind Morrison is Max Pacioretty, a well-traveled winger who's with his fourth different team in as many seasons.
My collection of Max is what it is because of folks like Doug who send me so many of his cards, like the ones in the previous scan, the few you see here (two of which are numbered!) and even more below. Palushaj barely had an NHL career to speak of but I still happily collect him. '21 #1 overall pick Owen Power is still fairly new to my collection but, again, thanks to Doug my small collection is growing. Tambellini was a favorite of mine while I had student season tickets. And as you'll see between this scan and the next,
My collection of Trouba got a nice bump as well. The sometimes overly aggressive D-man rests comfortably in the top 10 with just shy of 50 cards, in large part thanks to the guy who sent me these. One of the two Turcos helping to keep him #1 by a large margin can be seen here while there's one more below. Next, we have three of six Werenski cards representing yet another ex-Michigan guy that headed down to Columbus as a pro.
The other three sit atop this scan, including a typically excellent UD base plus the usually very cool (no pun intended) UD Ice. Two of the best looking cards in the entire box aren't even hits, but instead super thick cards of young Flyer Cam York. Both are '21-'22 SPx issues, with the first being a Finite inserted #d /399 and the other being a gorgeous Shadow Box card that has to be seen in-person to be appreciated.
We'll close out this scan (but not the post, oddly enough) with some beautiful hits. First is a beautiful RC auto of J.T. Compher, who's had his named called today already and will have the honor one more time. That's out of 2017-18 Ultimate Collection and the signature /399 is my third autograph to go with one relic. Tyler Motte, meanwhile, represents WolverWing #4 in this post, and that SPx Blackhawks jersey (/235) is relic #5 out of nine total hits. The former Chicago center joined Detroit as his 8th NHL team. Well represented PC guy Max Pacioretty is next with an SPx jersey representing one of his four seasons with Vegas. He's up to 12 hits including nine relics like that above average jersey swatch. And last up is a Panini Rookie Anthology card of Travis Turnbull that I swore I already had until I realized Doug had sent me the Patch version that comes with two excellent pieces of a Sabres jersey to go with Turnbull's signature. Besides the swatch upgrade, the card is #d /99, and that becomes my third hit of a Buffalo player who scored a single goal in three NHL games.
Like I said above, we weren't quite done yet because we still have some horizontals and other oddities that I decided to scan after the hits. Compher, Jack Johnson, and Patch all get some cool X-axis cards, and once again I love UD's flagship look. David Oliver isn't as common of a name around here--that's just my fourth card of his--so I appreciate the deep cut. The trio of goalie cards starring two of Michigan's best--Shields and Turco--has me wishing Pacific and its die-cut Crown Royale were still around. I love that he sent a base and two different parallels to give a nice look at the range of colors that set offered. Compher makes one last appearance thanks to a Panini sticker. And then we have one last player: David Shand. Like Oliver, he's not a very common name and actually only has 12 cards catalogued on TCDb. I now own three of those thanks to this 1979 sticker also made by Panini which may be the oldest such issue in my collection.
Once again I hope the fact that I had to give in and split up this package into two posts goes a long way towards indicating just how generous Doug can be when it comes to trading. Not only did he bomb me with quantity, but there was an absolute ton of quality across these two posts, and rest assured that I don't take such effort for granted. Thanks for being one of my favorite trading partners, Doug, and I hope to close out the year with a Christmas package that shows my appreciation!
Stay tuned for another August trade package coming up soon!