Twelve NHL teams passed on Mike Bossy in the 1977 draft. He scored 53 goals as a rookie, and his first Topps card arrived the following fall. PSA has graded 2,142 copies of it, and five have come back Gem Mint 10.

The card is #115 in Topps' 1978-79 hockey set, cataloged by PSA as 1978 Topps, and PSA's record for it carries both the rookie and Hall of Fame designations. The front is pure action. Bossy, in Islanders blue with his No. 22, is tangled at the stick with an opponent in white whose jersey also reads 22. The name "MIKE BOSSY" runs across the top in blue capitals, and a pennant in the top corner carries the Islanders logo, "RIGHT WING" and "ISLANDERS."

The Scorer Nobody Wanted

Bossy grew up in Montreal and scored 309 goals in five seasons of junior hockey with Laval, still the career record for all of major junior. NHL scouts still called him "not rugged enough" and weak defensively. In the 1977 amateur draft, twelve teams went past him. The New York Rangers and Toronto Maple Leafs each passed twice, and Montreal coach Scotty Bowman later regretted that the Canadiens had too.

The Islanders took him 15th overall. He scored in his first NHL game, on Oct. 13, 1977, against Buffalo. By late February he had passed Rick Martin's rookie record of 44 goals, and he finished with 53, a rookie record that stood until Teemu Selanne broke it in 1993. He won the Calder Trophy as rookie of the year. Before the season, he had told general manager Bill Torrey he would score 50.

This card, issued after that season, is his first Topps card.

Fifty, Nine Times Running

Bossy scored 50 or more goals in each of his first nine seasons. That ties Wayne Gretzky and Alexander Ovechkin for the most 50-goal seasons in NHL history, and Bossy is the only one of the three whose nine came consecutively. In 1980-81 he scored 50 goals in 50 games, the first player to do it in the 36 years since Maurice Richard.

He won four straight Stanley Cups with the Islanders in the early 1980s, scored the Cup-winning goal in both 1982 and 1983, and took the Conn Smythe Trophy as playoff MVP in 1982. Back pain dogged his tenth season, and he played his last game at 30, retiring officially in October 1988. He finished with 573 goals in 752 games and still holds the NHL's best career average of goals per regular-season game. He entered the Hockey Hall of Fame in 1991, the Islanders retired No. 22 the following March, and he died of lung cancer on April 15, 2022, at 65.

PSA Population Report

PSA GradePopulationValue
PSA 105$5,000
PSA 9207$95
PSA 8695$25
Total Graded (All Grades)2,142—

* Population data as of October 15, 2026. PSA population counts are dynamic and increase as more cards are submitted for grading. Values are PSA Price Guide figures.

A Curve That Crests at Eight

Bossy's card is most often graded at PSA 8. That grade holds 695 of the 2,142 straight-graded copies, about one in three. Above it the count drops hard, to 207 at PSA 9 and five at PSA 10. Below it the slope is gentler, 488 at PSA 7 and then down steadily to just two PSA 1s.

The grade curve, top to bottom:

  • PSA 10: 5
  • PSA 9: 207
  • PSA 8: 695
  • PSA 7: 488
  • PSA 6: 317
  • PSA 5: 220
  • PSA 4: 141
  • PSA 3: 49
  • PSA 2: 18
  • PSA 1: 2

The qualified slabs gather near the top as well. PSA has issued 177 grades with a qualifier on this card, and 143 of them are 8s and 9s: 85 at PSA 8 and 58 at PSA 9. At the nine, that means 58 qualified slabs alongside the 207 straight ones. There are 24 half grades, and no copy has been encapsulated Authentic.

Verdict: the scorer twelve teams skipped became the only player with nine 50-goal seasons in a row. His first Topps card is easy to find at PSA 8 and still hard to find at the top: five Gem Mints in 2,142 tries.