When you rip hockey wax, you chase Young Guns. The autos are nice. The inserts are fine. But the Young Gun is the card that holds value across decades, and the 2023-24 class is loaded enough to keep that tradition intact.
Upper Deck has run the Young Guns subset for over thirty years, and it remains the rookie card collectors point to for any era. A Young Gun from 1990 carries the same weight as one from last season. That consistency is the entire reason the subset commands respect, and it is why a base rookie can outrun the autos from competing products.
Why Young Guns Still Run the Show
The pull is not just scarcity, though the Canvas and High Gloss parallels are genuinely rare. It is the foundational status of the card. The Young Gun signals that a player has arrived. The 2023-24 checklist, split across Series 1 and Series 2, was deep enough to back that up. Several of these names are already core pieces of every hockey collection being built right now.
Look at what the subset does over time. The 2005 Alexander Ovechkin Young Gun, his iconic rookie, sells for $696.65 raw, and a PSA 10 copy reaches $3,538.73 on real sold comps. That is the ceiling a great Young Gun can reach once the player builds a Hall of Fame case. Nobody was paying those prices in 2005. They paid them later, which is exactly the bet collectors place on a fresh class.
The 2023-24 Rookie Class: Who to Chase
The conversation starts with Connor Bedard. His Young Gun is the white whale of the set. Raw copies trade around $211.87, a PSA 9 sits near $249.04, and a PSA 10 pushes $637 on recent sold prices. The volume backs the demand, with well over a thousand recorded sales. This is the card that anchors the value of every 2023-24 rip.
Behind Bedard, the depth is real. Leo Carlsson is the next name up. His Young Gun moves around $24.50 raw and climbs to $190.96 in a PSA 10. Adam Fantilli follows close, with a raw Young Gun near $13.41 and a PSA 10 reaching $98.97. His Canvas parallel runs a touch higher raw at $14.33. These are not lottery tickets. They are established players with prices that already reflect their NHL footing.
Then there is the next tier, the guys who slowly appreciate while nobody is watching. Zach Benson moves around $8.45 raw and $85 in a PSA 10, and his sales volume is enormous, nearly 1,800 on the base Young Gun alone. Matthew Poitras sits lower at $2.22 raw and $32.30 graded. Neither will make you rich overnight. But these are legitimate NHL players with long careers ahead, and that is precisely the profile that becomes surprisingly valuable a decade out.
Where the Grading Money Sits
For the top of the class, the math on grading is simple. A raw Bedard Young Gun trades near $211.87. The PSA 10 reaches $637. That gap is the entire argument for sending in a clean copy yourself instead of letting a flipper scoop it raw, slab it, and pocket the spread.
The same logic scales down the checklist. Carlsson jumps from $24.50 raw to $190.96 in a 10. Fantilli runs from $13.41 to $98.97. Benson goes from $8.45 to $85. The grading premium is not a Bedard-only phenomenon. It applies across the class, provided the card grades clean. Centering is the usual killer on Young Guns, so inspect corners and edges before you spend the grading fee.
The Long Game on Your Collection
If you are still ripping 2023-24 wax, the play is obvious. Hope for a Bedard, take any of the other top names, and protect what you pull. If you already have the cards in hand, the decision splits by tier.
For the headliners, grade your clean copies. The delta between raw and a PSA 10 is large now and widens as these players establish themselves. For the secondary names like Poitras or Benson, consider moving a few raw copies while interest is fresh if you are holding stacks of them. Keep your best examples in a one-touch and hold them long. Those are the cards that quietly compound.
Young Guns always matter. They are the backbone of hockey collecting, and the 2023-24 class, with Bedard leading the charge, just reinforced that for another generation. Hold onto them.