The Captain and the Cup

For a long time, the knock on Steve Yzerman was that he was a soft, offense-only player whose teams would always crumble under the pressure of playoff hockey. Yzerman, of course, eventually rewrote that narrative, leading the Red Wings to three Stanley Cups in six years and becoming revered as the consummate team captain, a player who completely changed his game in order to help his team win.

All of that, however, happened after I had stopped collecting hockey cards. So one of the coolest things about getting back into the hobby is finding new ones that depict Yzerman in various states of celebration with the most iconic trophy in sports. Like the one above, from the "Cup Celebrations" subset in 2005-06 Upper Deck Power Play. It's the perfect hockey player smile!

As I kid, I would have flipped out to come across this, which was a simple base card in 1997-98 Score, which came out just after the Yzerman had won the first of his three cups. With the sunglasses and the white shirt, I'm guessing that this photo was taken during the Red Wings' parade through Detroit.

Also from 1997-98, but the Upper Deck set. I'm not sure if this is a base card or if "Game Dated" cards were a subset within the main one. Either way, gorgeous shot of the the team circling around the rink with the cup. I *think* that's Kris Draper looking rapturous just over Yzerman's right shoulder and waiting for his turn to hoist the trophy.

This die-cut card is one of my favorites. It's from an 18-card insert set, "Playoff Highlights," in the 1998-99 Be A Player release, which came out just after the Wings had won their second consecutive cup. I made a few unsuccessful runs at this card at eBay, before finally getting a seller on COMC to knock it down below $7.

I like this card so much, I'll show off the back, too.

This card celebrates Yzerman's third cup, which he won in 2002. It's a smaller-than-normal card (though not quite a mini) and I think UD Retrospectives was an insert or parallel set in Upper Deck's 2002-03 Artistic Impressions release.

One of the silver linings to the 2012-13 NHL lockout is that it forced hockey-card manufacturers to come up with some different concepts, since they couldn't rely on rookie cards to drive sales that year. And this was one of the best: ITG's History of Hockey. It was one of those four-cards-to-a-box, high-end products that included rookie buybacks, autograph buybacks and artistic memorabilia cards. The Yzerman card commemorates the 1997 Cup win, which was the first for the Red Wings in 42 years.

Here's the back of the card, which comes pre-slabbed. This is the silver version, each of which is numbered to 40. There are also gold versions numbered to 10. It's probably the second-most valuable Yzerman card I own, after his O-Pee-Chee rookie. Beckett puts the low value at $40; got this one on eBay for $19.99, plus shipping.

Bonus card! It's not the Stanley Cup, but it's the next best thing: The Conn Smythe Trophy, which is given the most valuable player in the playoffs. Yzerman won during the Wings' 1998 Cup run, when he lead the league in scoring with 24 points in 22 games.