thewantlist.ca

If Panini wants to make a difference in the hockey card hobby, it best pay attention to player selection for the upcoming 2010-11 NHL season. As 2009-10 proved so painfully once again, some of the game’s best young players are often overlooked in today’s NHL card sets.

In a market laden with rookie cards, card companies often forget sophomores and even NHL rookies in favour of “semi” stars and once proven veterans. Sure, they get everybody who makes their NHL debut and even the big guys beyond Year I, but they miss other young stars in Year II or even NHL rookies whose rookie cards may have been issued in previous years.

Goalies Jimmy Howard and Tuukka Rask are two prime examples from the 2009-10 season. Howard’s rookie cards were issued in 2005-06; Rask’s rookie cards were issued in 2007-08. Detroit’s 26-year old Howard has made a breakthrough this season with 37 wins, but he has only been featured in 2009-10 Victory. Rask has had a great year himself and has supplanted last year Vézina Trophy winner Tim Thomas in Boston’s goal. The 23-year old Rask was barely featured in 2009-10 O-Pee-Chee (he is on a four-player quad jersey card), but has no base cards through early May.

It should be noted that Howard and Rask were both featured in 2009-10 Between The Pipes, a goalie-specific set that features American Hockey League players. Howard and Rask were, of course, minor-league goaltenders last year. The duo has played the full season at the NHL level, though, so by January they should have had more NHL cards.

In fairness to the Upper Deck Company, this problem isn’t unique to the 2009-10 season or UDC’s exclusive reign since 2004-05. In fact, this problem goes back more than 10 years to the days of In The Game, Pacific Trading Cards, and the Topps Company. It used to be worse in the late 1990s when card companies didn’t just neglect the rookies and young stars, but also missed the rookie cards.

The first issue at hand is response time. By 2010-11, Howard and Rask will be featured in every set. That is a full year, though, after they got hot as NHL rookies in 2009-10.

The second issue is player selection. Instead of coming back time and time again to Jean-Pierre Dumont or Chris Drury, take a stab at one of the young kids like Howard or Rask.

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