2023-24 Upper Deck Star Rookies #1 Connor Bedard, TAG 9
- Player
- Connor Bedard, C, Chicago Blackhawks
- Set
- 2023-24 Upper Deck NHL Star Rookies box set
- Card #
- 1
- Grader
- TAG
- Grade
- 9 Mint
- Cert #
- S9506376
- TAG pop
- 12 Mint 9s out of 40 graded
- Est. value (Oct 2026)
- ~$20–$30 (recent graded 9 sales)
- Status
- Personal collection, not for sale
Number four in my personal collection, and the second hockey card: Connor Bedard, card #1 from the 2023-24 Upper Deck NHL Star Rookies box set, graded a 9 Mint by TAG.
The card
Star Rookies is Upper Deck's yearly boxed set of the NHL's top first-year players, and Bedard got the #1 spot. The front has him in the white Blackhawks #98, stick on the ice, with the silver foil Star Rookies banner and Blackhawks logo across the bottom. The back has his last junior season with the Regina Pats, 71 goals and 72 assists for 143 points in 57 games, plus a note about his four-point night in Chicago's 5-3 win at Tampa Bay on Nov. 9, 2023. At 18 years and 115 days old, that made him the third-youngest player in NHL history with a four-point game.
Why it matters
Bedard was the most hyped hockey prospect since McDavid, and the Blackhawks took him first overall in 2023. He went on to win the Calder Trophy as the NHL's top rookie that season. It sits nicely next to my McDavid: two generational centers, both shown as kids at the start.
This is a box set card, not his Upper Deck Young Guns rookie card, but it's an officially licensed NHL card from his actual rookie season, and it's card #1 in the set.
The grade
TAG grades with computer imaging, scoring every card out of 1,000 on top of the 1–10 grade. This one came back a 9 Mint. As of October 2026, TAG has graded 40 copies of this card, 12 of them got a 9, and mine is tied for 3rd highest among those Mints. The photos here come straight from TAG's report, and you can see the whole thing at my.taggrading.com.
Photos are from TAG's grading report.
