2025–26 Upper Deck AHL Hockey: Lardis, Nadeau and the Team-Color Chase

Nick Lardis’s Star Rookies card has a large, gloriously irritable red pig at its center. The Rockford IceHogs crest fills his white sweater, his red stick runs across the photograph, and the silver-gray frame stays mostly below the action. The team logo appears again above the rookie banner. Rockford gets plenty of billing here, which is exactly how an AHL card should feel.

Lardis is No. 109 in 2025–26 Upper Deck AHL Hockey, a June 3, 2026 release. His card is a particularly good introduction to the product: a recognizable prospect, a full AHL uniform and enough room in the photograph to appreciate both. Even the red rink marking behind his skates joins the IceHogs color scheme. Hammy approves of the casting.

The release combines a 150-card base set, numbered rookie parallels and three insert families with a Hobby box built around two autographs. The card images here are Upper Deck’s promotional previews; card numbers, subjects and odds come from its complete final checklist.

Fifty Star Rookies, with Lardis at the center of the picture

The final base checklist has 83 regular cards, 17 All-Stars and 50 Star Rookies. The rookies occupy Nos. 101–150. Alongside Lardis are Jacob Fowler in Laval at No. 117, Gabe Perreault in Hartford at No. 121, Ilya Protas in Hershey at No. 139 and David Reinbacher in Laval at No. 144.

Those are AHL Star Rookies: the team identity belongs to this league and this release. Perreault’s Hartford card and Fowler’s Laval card offer a different part of their collecting stories from cards picturing them with NHL clubs. Lardis’s preview makes that appeal especially tangible because the IceHogs crest is so prominent and the whole skating pose remains visible.

All 50 rookies have Gold, Deluxe /250, UD Exclusives /100 and High Gloss /10 versions. Gold is unnumbered; the other three have stated edition sizes. The numbered ladder is compact enough to follow without working through dozens of differently named colors. For a Lardis collection, it keeps the focus on that same Rockford photograph at three defined scarcity levels.

Bradly Nadeau’s Impressive Debuts turns up the light

Bradly Nadeau’s Impressive Debuts, ID-2, exchanges the cool rink background for a warm orange-and-gold glow. Chicago’s wolf crest remains the center of the action photograph. His dark sweater and equipment stand out against the bright field, while the insert name runs vertically up the left side in red lettering.

The diagonal skating pose gives this card its movement. Nadeau’s skates reach toward the lower-left corner, his shoulders lean right, and the vertical title creates a firm edge beside him. The decoration brightens the card without swallowing the Wolves uniform. It is the most theatrical of these three previews, and the warm colors work beautifully with the maroon-and-gold trim.

Impressive Debuts has 15 subjects and stated odds of 1:24 Hobby packs. The checklist also includes Dalibor Dvorsky, Luca Cagnoni, Florian Xhekaj and Owen Beck. Nadeau appears separately as regular base No. 1; Impressive Debuts gives his Chicago collection a distinct insert design alongside that base card. The 1:24 rate applies to the insert family, not to Nadeau alone.

Isak Rosén’s Squad Shades makes Rochester blue

Isak Rosén’s Squad Shades, SS-9, is more graphic. A deep blue-purple wash covers the player photograph, which sits inside an irregular black frame on a pale, brush-textured background. The multicolored script at the top adds a small burst of contrast. Rochester’s Americans logo remains in full color at the lower right.

It is a closer portrait than Lardis’s full skating figure. Rosén’s face, helmet, shoulder star and jersey lettering do most of the work. That concentrated color treatment makes Squad Shades feel like a team poster scaled down to a card, while Nadeau’s insert uses light and an action pose to create its energy.

The 20-card Squad Shades set falls at 1:18 Hobby packs. Carter Mazur, Isaac Howard and Brett Seney are among its other subjects. For Rochester collectors, Rosén’s regular base No. 63 and Squad Shades SS-9 provide two named targets within the release.

Tendys gives the goalies their own checklist

The third insert family, Tendys, is a ten-card goalie set at 1:36 Hobby packs. Drew Commesso is T-2, Dylan Garand T-4, Carl Lindbom T-5 and Devon Levi T-6. That makes Tendys the least frequent of the three standard insert families by stated pack odds, with half as many subjects as Squad Shades.

It also gives team collectors a different route through the product. A Rockford group can connect Lardis’s Star Rookies card with Commesso’s Tendys and Kevin Korchinski’s base and All-Stars cards. Rochester has Rosén in Squad Shades and Levi in Tendys. Those combinations are grounded in the actual checklist, rather than treating every player as having every insert.

Two autographs, with three distinct groups of signers

The autograph checklist divides into 51 regular base signers, ten All-Stars and 28 Star Rookies. Their stated Hobby-pack odds are 1:12, 1:80 and 1:32, respectively. These are separate pools: an AHL All-Stars autograph is a different card from a player’s regular base autograph.

Korchinski illustrates the distinction neatly. His regular autograph is No. 61, while his All-Stars autograph is No. 84. Owen Beck has the same two routes at Nos. 39 and 86. Reinbacher is among the Star Rookies signers at No. 144.

The 28-name rookie autograph list is smaller than the 50-card unsigned rookie set. Lardis, Fowler and Perreault are in the latter but do not appear in that rookie autograph family. For those three, the numbered Star Rookies parallels are the relevant chase within this product.

What the Hobby box brings together

The manufacturer’s product information specifies 16 packs of six cards. Its box breakdown lists two autographs, 16 Gold parallels, ten Star Rookies, two inserts and two numbered parallels; treat the breakdown as an average rather than a fixed assortment in every box.

That mix puts signatures and rookie variations at the center of the opening. The three standard insert families provide occasional changes of design, with Squad Shades more frequent than Impressive Debuts or Tendys. The final Gold odds also differ by group: 1:2 packs for regular base, 1:3 for Star Rookies and 1:9 for All-Stars.

My favorite of these previews is still Lardis. The clean white uniform, red stick and enormous IceHogs crest give it a strong identity without needing an elaborate background. Nadeau supplies the warmer, flashier alternative, and Rosén supplies the graphic team-color treatment. Three very different cards, each unmistakably rooted in its AHL club.