Deja Vu Tuesday: Carter Hutton

For the first four years of his professional career, it looked like Carter Hutton was doomed to the minors. During a three-year span, Hutton was called-up from the minors and appeared as a backup for a handful of games; first for the Philadelphia Flyers in 2009-10, then the San Jose Sharks in 2010-11 and then the Chicago Blackhawks in 2011-12. But Hutton never actually played in any of those games. 

The same seemed destined to happen in 2012-13, when the Blackhawks called up Hutton a few times during the lockout-shortened season to ride the pine. Finally, in their last regular season game of 2012-13, the Blackhawks started Hutton in his first NHL game — a 3-1 loss to the St. Louis Blues. After that, he grew into a dependable backup netminder; first for the Nashville Predators, and then last season for the Blues.

During two of his years in the minors,  Hutton had two trading cards that used the exact same photo — which was weird because they were cards for different teams. 

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Deja Vu Tuesday: Patrick Kane

The exact same photograph of Patrick Kane was used on two different hockey cards during the 2011-12 season. At first, I thought this could have been an honest mistake. But then my research led to an unusual conclusion: what if one card company deliberately decided to use the same photograph to troll their competitor? 

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Top 10 cards from 2011-12 Upper Deck Series 1

 
Upper Deck Hockey cards have been something special since 1990. Every year, the best hockey card photographs tend to end up on Upper Deck Series 1 and Series 2.
 

Even a run-of-the-mill photo on an Upper Deck Series 1 or 2 card would usually be the best card on another set like Victory, Donruss or Score.

So, I decided to pick the Top 10 photos from 2011-12 Upper Deck Series 1 Hockey, based on the following criteria:

      • Base cards only – no short prints or inserts
      • Being an action photo wasn’t good enough – this had to be a cut above
      • I tried to go for a variety – not just goal scoring or just body checks
      • Finally, nothing too gimmicky that you would normally find on a Pinnacle card

With so many great photos, it was hard to boil it down to the best of the best of the best. But I still did. For your enjoyment, here’s the Top 10:

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