Your Series 2 Ottawa Senators (and more!)

Upper Deck Series 2 dropped this past Thursday. I jumped into a group break of a case of the product and picked up the cards yesterday. And, just for the heck of it, I grabbed a few packs while there. I'll show the highlights for those at the end, but will start with the Sens content.

There are 7 base cards in the non-YG portion of the set for Ottawa. 4 of them were horizontal photos, and they are all spectacular. Even the basic ones have the third uniforms. Career Senator Chris Neil's locker room showcases is beautiful, but the framing of the Anderson makes it my favourite. I love how his name appears on the marquees behind him.

The vertical bas are pretty bland, but another appearance of the third uniform saves it.

Onto the inserts!

Shane Prince and Matt Puempel were all over Series 1 and Upper Deck's early releases. This time around, this was my only card of Prince. Since I've already got one card of his in the Sens collection, I'll be adding this insert to my Kitchener Rangers alum collection.

Max McCormick was the only other player to make only one appearance, doing so on his YG card. With a chin like that, he's naturally an enforcer type, although he has potted a pair of goals over 20 games with the parent club this year. Nott bad for a 6th round pick (one of 4 to have seen NHL action in 15-16).

I guess Driedger only made one appearance, photographically-speaking. But this was my first UD Exclusive /100 card. No complaints adding one to my collection, especially a YG card. While I did have cards of Chris from Between The Pipes where he's listed as a Sens draft pick, this is my first card of him in a Sens uniform.

The Canvas inserts. The Hoffman easily wins the photo wars here.

I love that Chris Wideman actually gets a pretty cool photo on his first card. It is also nice that the photos aren't recycled between the base and the retro OPC inserts.

And to wrap Ottawa-related things up, 2-14 baby Matt O'Connor. He was a Young Gun in Series 1, and now makes an appearance on insert sets. I already have 3 strong contenders for my 2017 Top 10 2-14 cards from the past calendar year. For now, I'm probably going with the Retro parallel base on design, but I might swap it out for the mask photos.

When I picked up the cards, I also got a trio of packs. Here are the highlights:

This isn't the most exciting photo, but it is probably the best look you'l get at the Al Arbour memorial patch from 2015 releases.

The competition for the best photo in the set wasn't even close. The short write up on the back mentions Raanta was the first star in a shutout win over San Jose, so I'm guessing the photo is from then.

The packs all had either an insert or a YG card. I only landed one of the latter from the 3 packs. If I was going to get a Star, I'd rather Radek Faksa than Shore, but I'll take it. Even if Faksa might have the worst auto among this year's rookie class.

One of the packs did have the one per box relic card. I've pulled two from flagship this season, both Leafs. While I had little use for the James Van Riemsdyk, at least this one will at least have a home in the mask binder.

And the best of the inserts? How about a second 2/14 baby in this post? This puts my total at a nice 1275 cards.

And there you have the extent of my Series 2 hobby purchases, as I'll probably go retail the rest of the way home.