Update: 85 Young Guns

After stopping by our local card shop -- the House of Cards in Pinellas Park -- I learned those 85 Young Guns I pulled from a hobby box of 2008-09 Upper Deck Hockey Series 2 were likely part of a nuclear-hot case.

It seems that other hockey card collectors who bought boxes at The House of Cards also reported insane amounts of Young Guns as they ripped open packs. In one case, Young Guns filled entire packs.

Honestly, I can't imagine Upper Deck making a conscious decision to do that. To me, it sounds more like someone putting stacks of Young Guns, rather than base cards, into the collator.

Still, though, no complaints.

This has to be a mistake

Not that I'm complaining or anything, but after pulling 85 Young Guns out of a box of 2008-09 Upper Deck Hockey Series 2 one can only wonder what in the Gordie Howe is going on in North Las Vegas.

That's right, one box produced eighty-freaking-five Young Guns. I've heard of hot boxes. This box, hand-picked from three offered at the House of Cards in Pinellas Park, Fla., was a near-meltdown within the Young Guns 50-card franchise.

Even better, I have no clue how it happened. It just did. Divine intervention? Mechanical gremlins? A mischievous collator? Who knows?

Just look at the numbers:

~ 48: Number of different rookie cards
~ 44: Percentage of Young Guns cards within the 192 cards in the box
~ 6: Number of Young Guns cards per box, on average, according to Upper Deck
~ 14: Number of boxes, using Upper Deck's averages, it would take to accumulate 85 Young Guns
~ $68.47: What I paid for the box

My only complaint? One would think a full set could have been culled from the 85. Nope. Didn't happen; 48 out of the 49 players, plus the checklist. Atlanta's Nathan Oystrick was the healthy scratch.

Now, look at some of the cards:

Four-banger

I know Islanders fans have high hopes for Josh Bailey, probably just as much as teammate Kyle Okposo, but this is downright ridiculous:

Ironic there's a short-print (098/100) in the mix, isn't it?

Hat tricks

Why, oh, why couldn't this have happened in any of the Series 1 boxes? Maybe I would've scored a Young Gun for Tampa Bay's Steven Stamkos (hint, hint, hint)?

A pair of goalies -- Toronto's Justin Pogge and Washington's Simeon Varlamov -- showed up three times.

Duplicate efforts

The largest subset, there were two cards each for 29 players:

Doubles (from left): Washington's Karl Alzner, Carolina's Zach Boychuk, Los Angeles' Brian Boyle and Dallas' Fabian Brunnstrom

More doubles (from left): Columbus' Nikita Filatov and Dan LaCosta, and Vancouver's Cory Schneider

Not shown, but noteworthy: Anaheim's Andrew Ebbett and Brett Festerling, Atlanta's Boris Valabik, Carolina's Patrick Dwyer, Dwight Helminen and Justin Peters, Columbus' Derek Dorsett, Edmonton's Theo Peckham, Florida's Jason Garrison and Michael Repik, Los Angeles' Danny Taylor, the Isles' Mitch Fritz and Brett Skinner, New Jersey's Patrick Davis, Matthew Halischuk and Petr Vrana, Ottawa's Jesse Winchester, Philadelphia's Darroll Powe, Phoenix's Kevin Porter, Pittsburgh's John Curry, San Jose's Tom Cavanaugh and Washington's Tyler Sloan

One-per players

Besides Oystrick, it's my guess these are the Young Guns' toughies:

Top row: St. Louis' Ben Bishop, Toronto's Jonas Frogren and Buffalo's Nathan Gerbe
Middlow row: Toronto's Nikolai Kulemin, Carolina's Joe Jensen and New Jersey's Pierre-Luc Letourneau-Leblond
Bottom row: San Jose's Jamie McGinn, Columbus' Andrew Murray and Philadelphia's Andreas Nodl

Top row: Florida's Kendal McArdle, Edmonton's Steve MacIntire, Pittsburgh's Janne Pesonen and Los Angeles' Teddy Purcell
Bottom row: Colorado's Chris Stewart, San Jose's Brad Staubitz, Phoenix's Viktor Tikhonov and the Young Guns checklist, showing Dallas' Fabian Brunnstrom, Tikhonov and Columbus' Nikita Filatov

Stamkos wasn't in the cards

Alright, alright, I admit it. The only reason I bought another box of Upper Deck Hockey Series I on Black Friday was the off chance that I'd finally pull a Young Guns card -- the common-man's cardboard gold standard for rookie cards -- for Tampa Bay's Steven Stamkos.

It didn't surprise me when I didn't pull one out of the first box I busted. Nope, that would have been too easy. Pulling Young Guns for Atlanta's Zach Bogosian and Los Angeles' Drew Doughty, however, helped ease the pain.

I felt certain, too, that a Stamkos Young Gun was in the works when the second box yielded Philly's Lucas Sbisa and another Doughty card. In a sense, my hunch was right. I did pull a Stamkos Young Gun card. It just wasn't the one I wanted.

Nope, I got the lovely parting gift of the Young Guns checklist card, where Stamkos shares space with St. Louis' Alex Pietrangelo and Doughty.

It was the third box, though, that broke my heart. Though it produced Young Guns for St. Louis' Patrik Berglund, the Isles' Kyle Okposo and Toronto's Luke Schenn, I was pretty disappointed that I hadn't scored a Young Guns for Stamkos.

With any investment -- sound or foolish -- I prefer to take the long-term view. Though I'm happy with the quantity of quality Young Guns I've pulled so far -- and this is a pretty deep and solid set -- I believe Stamkos possesses the most potential for long-term appreciation.

Will I buy more? Doubt it. I know when to walk away.

Hard at work

For those of you who may believe I've been talking to lawyers over the past few weeks, I now have proof that I've been busy creating the ninth and 10th titles in my suite of hockey collecting blogs:

Sweet Swatches: Fourteen of the sweetest memorabilia cards (primarily swatches of jerseys and patches) in our collection.

Young Guns: A look at our top-shelf Upper Deck Young Guns, the gold standard of hockey rookie cards.

Taken together, I believe all 10 offer one of the most comprehensive arrays of hockey hounding/collecting blogs on the Internet.

Check them out, won't you?

Editor's note: This originally appeared on Hound Central 3.0.