2022-23 Upper Deck MVP Hockey Cards Checklist, Odds & Rookie Redemption Details

When will the list of cards that can be obtained for “Rookie Redemption” cards be published? There are already a few of those card replacements for sale on eBay, but I couldn’t find the checklist anywhere

I would say I have almost a love/hate relationship with MVP. Upper Deck has quite a niche with this set every year, appealing to the low-middle range of the market. These cards have a quality look/feel to them similar to Upper Deck series 1 or 2, but with a bit less dazzling photos and a smaller photo format than the full-bleed UD 2022-23. The upside is some good parallels and get to “chase” the SPs numbered from 200-250. The Ice Battles and 20th Anniversary parallels add to the fun factor, and I like the clean 20th Anniv. design with the replica signatures.

Hobby boxes run $30-70 and a blaster of this product is $20 which is going to get a lot of buyers and repeat customers looking to fill or chase another parallel. Odds of getting an autographed card or /5 are quite low however. Distribution is pretty good with very few duplicates encountered in my experience.

Now that we’ve covered the good, of course it comes with some bad. The backs are quite lazy, they a random blurb about a highlight of a game from the previous season but nothing even worth reading most of the time. As another reviewer pointed out, these factoids are not even updated through the end of the previous season, as traditional hockey sets would be.

The checklist of the set always comes with some glaring omissions, which makes this set a bit less fun to collect. An example is in 2022-23 to leave Victor Arvidsson out of the set completely is a miss. This is an opportunity to show a high profile, 25+ goal performing player on a new team for the first time and they blow it. This set is also a bit light on goalies and it shows – most teams have 2 or 3 goalies rostered but you’ll only find a fraction of the NHL netminders in the set. Again this would be an opportunity to show several ‘tenders in a new uniform and pads but they don’t manage. Many teams have 0 goalies featured which makes this less appealing especially to team set collectors or goalie fanatics. Also the chases are SPs, not RCs so if you’re a RC chaser look elsewhere as you won’t get a single hit.

The second issue is the cards design is pretty basic. I actually think the upcoming 2023-24 MVP is even worse looking than this set, so probably won’t bother buying any of it. Stick to the 2022-23 or earlier versions.

I’ve been away from the hobby for too many years. I decided to take a look at whats available now. I was very surprised at how the hobby has changed. It was overwhelming to see how much product is out there for all sports and more. Being I love hockey and collected hockey cards years and years ago I purchased some packs of 2022-23 Upper Deck Hockey MVP and 2022-23 Upper Deck Hockey Series 1 and 2022-23 O Pee Chee Hockey at a cost of between 4 and 5 dollars a pack. To highlight what I found in those packs was the following:
Upper Deck MVP: a David Pastrnak Black Signature card numbered 1/5 and also lots more
Upper Deck Series 1: Young Guns insert cards, clear cards, a Jason Robinson UD Portraits card, UD Canvas cards, etc
O Pee Chee: A Patrick Roy Woodie ,a Norris Trophy Card of Al MacInnis and lots of Numbered cards from a few different parallel sets, base cards and much more
Not that I expect to find goodies all the time, But I will come back to the hobby and enjoy it like when I was a kid….BTW I tried to find out about the Pastrnak card and I couldn’t. Does anyone have any info about it? Thanks

1. Includes most of the top players from each team.

2. I’ve thought this over: don’t believe this should be considered a 2022-23 product. Why? The cards do not include final 2021-22 statistics. The verbal descriptions on the card backs contain the following types of statements (from the A. Matthews card): “Matthews delivered his fourth hat trick of the 2021-22 season … on April 4th. … he tied Rick Vaive’s single-season goal record of 54 …”.

It’s becomes clear that the cards were written before the season ended. Matthews finished the season with 60 goals. All of the cards in the set have the same pattern: they were written before the 2021-22 season ended.

3. I do like the parallel “skills rating” cards but is a difficult set to complete.

all stars #18 steven stamkos

MVP remains one of the best products in the hobby. I just read above that someone called it trash. With all due respect, calling it trash is a misunderstanding of our hobby. We could equally call 1933-34 OPC trash – one of the most cherished historical hockey products – because it is solely base cards. Who would want “only” a Howie Morenz base card, or a 1911 Vezina with rounded corners? Gross.

In the US, including tax, boxes of MVP hobby usually retail as follows: 22/23 $60, 21/22 $35, 20/21 $40, 19/20 $50, 18/19 $50, 17/18 $70, etc. During summer sales, MVP hobby including 15/16 and 16/17 dipped as low as $25! That’s how much I paid for my McDavid and Matthews #1 Overall Redemption cards. This is a testament to how accessible MVP is for children and working class parents who still know the value of a dollar, compared to food and shelter. Equally, MVP can be purchased in Europe, where most other releases are non existent.

What MVP brings is (a) the new season (!) and (b) initial excitement way ahead of all the mid-range and premium products, which cripple us financially. MVP reminds collectors that cards can actually be handled, physically traded in a school yard, and appreciated devoid of sunk cost, value, gambling, or keeping up with the Joneses. A low-end-end Owen Power RC? Yes, please.

There will always be those who criticize MVP for its rookie crop and lack of hits (albeit the divisional redemptions provide the cherished RCs). But MVP is not that. There are dozens and dozens of other products that charge an arm and a leg to promise a high ceiling, re. RCs, autos, and memorabilia. To deliver, mathematically, a low floor. In turn, the hobby became all about throwing money out the window, with gusto, on disastrous odds. And then cards were further hyper-inflated due to eBay bidding wars for group breaks, divorced from the actual box odds. Many of these (primarily) dudes sitting behind their laptops must have beer on their breath, as if they have just returned from the racetrack with a big hole in their pocket. Finally, they start flipping on eBay to try to recoup, while getting killed by eBay fees and taxes. Time is better devoted to developing an actual skill-set, to contribute to society.

MVP is OG. It’s simply about rummaging through cardboard without a care in the world. And if your son or daughter damages the cards? Who cares. Good for them. It’s the training wheels of our hobby. If you can’t appreciate Parkhurst, OPC, or MVP: fine. But those of us who do look forward to it every year. Just like we look forward to a home opener, with a new kid (congrats Nick Suzuki) wearing the “C.” And MVP gets bonus points for including unannounced all-star cards this year.

Picked up 2 boxes for $50 each. Fun break. Not high end product but fun.

Are the All-Stars unannounced??

Budget cards – yep. $70 the best price? Hell no- may as well spend a bit more for an UD Series 1 box at that amount

these cards are more colorful than upper deck’s regular, plus you get all the cards right away. waiting for 3 months to get the second half of the set is dumb. also for people who 7 or 8 players from your favourite teams is just enough. been buying them for 5 years. so glad they are coming out in september.

I know of a few hockey collectors that have a limited budget, so they really like this product. For me, it is the first set of the season, and I always pick up a box. Fun product to break, just don’t expect to get rich with the pulls.

MVP fills a void for budget collectors (namely kids, or parents buying for kids). It isn’t an investment product in the least, sans a few autos or the low numbered super script parallels (player dependant). Nothing wrong with it, it is what it is as long as the buy-in cost stays low.

If MVP didn’t have autographs or redemptions, they’d be fire starter just like Score is. Absolute trash