Familiar Face

 Just four packs of 2021-22 Upper Deck MVP hockey cards left from the hobby box, and the two today bring a familiar face on a familiar insert...

Picked up the more rare Mark Stone 20th anniversary gold card earlier, and now the same card without the gold. Probably 3 or 4 of these 20th anniversary cards in the box and the single gold, so a bit of an oddity to get the same player on both, but those be the odds I hit here.

Zach wins this first pack though as the lone Leaf. Glad to see him break out a bit with the move to Edmonton. A shame he couldn't keep growing in Toronto as he was a guy I liked to watch play for the team, but can't keep everyone al the time unfortunately - well, I guess you could, but would be a pretty stagnant team, and unless they are winning championship after championship, the fans aren't going to like it.

Pack two has the essentially one per hobby box, Mascot Sparkle card. Maybe not the one I would have picked, but not going to complain - other than, I think they should have gone with a more cartoonish blue instead of green for the mascot himself being literal with the blue jacket, instead of insect green. Heck, they could have gone all in on this insert and made it a real game of sorts instead of just looking like it and being a "compare stats and win" type of simple game. I get it though, not exactly a strength of the card company itself, and leave such games to Wizards of the Coast.