Ivan Miroshnichenko achieved multiple milestones during his rookie season in North America.
The 20-year-old Russian made his NHL debut in late December, scored his first NHL goal against the Pittsburgh Penguins, and played his first NHL playoff game against the New York Rangers. He also became a Calder Cup champion in June with the Hershey Bears.
After achieving those on-ice firsts, Miro earned another recently: his first official NHL rookie card.
Upper Deck, the exclusive trading card partner of the NHL, released their 2023-24 Extended Series Hockey product this summer and the Capitals’ Russian winger is on the rookie checklist.
🚨 2023-24 UD Extended Series is here!
Find your local hobby shop to add the latest hits & Young Guns to your collection >> https://t.co/CfSnpkYSrs pic.twitter.com/S5HzX5cBF1
— Upper Deck (@UpperDeckSports) June 26, 2024
Extended Series is the third release from Upper Deck of their flagship product for the 2023-24 season, following Series 1 and Series 2 earlier in the year. Miroshnichenko’s rookie is in a set called “Young Guns,” which houses the first big, sought-after card for the league’s newest players.
Shorter printed parallels of Miroshnichenko’s rookie can also be pulled from the product’s packs. The parallels include a clear-cut version of the card, silver outburst, deluxe (#’d out of 250), exclusives (#’d out of 100), outburst red (#’d out of 25), high gloss (#’d out of 10), and outburst gold (#’d out of 1).
An outburst red parallel of Miroshnichenko’s Young Guns, numbered 10 of 25, recently sold for $332 in an eBay auction.
However, Upper Deck wasn’t the first to introduce Miroshnichenko into the collectible world. Just a day after his debut, Topps, a trading card company now owned by Fanatics, released a limited-time drop of Miroshnichenko rookie sticker packs through their NHL Topps Now line.
The stickers were available for just one week (December 21-28) and completely sold out. Topps circumvents Upper Deck’s exclusivity deal with the NHL as their stickers are technically not trading cards.
The 2023-24 products in general have been incredibly hot sellers as collectors are after some of the first and best Connor Bedard rookies on the market. Bedard, the presumed next generational talent in the league, has several rookie inserts and his canvas Young Guns in Extended Series after having his base Young Guns in Series 2.
Hobby boxes of the product, where you can pull six Young Guns from the full 29-man crop in the set, are currently selling for around $140 at hobby shops and online distributors. Cheaper retail versions of the product, blaster boxes, are currently selling for around $25.
Miroshnichenko is not the only Capitals player to have cards in the product. Alex Ovechkin, Aliaksei Protas, Trevor van Riemsdyk, and Rasmus Sandin are also present in various sets.
