Well, my first question is why are they called "Artifacts"? Not every card in the set (base, parallels, inserts) have an "artifact" on them. Do they?
Then, my first thought is "how can any rookie card have an NHL artifact on it?". The cards are produced before a rookie starts his first NHL game. So a rookie has no NHL artifacts until after he's played his first NHL game. Unless they use minor league artifacts. Or those post-Draft events where they make them sign a million autograph stickers, don a thousand jersey, so they can produce MEM cards prior to the season start.
But to answer your question, I've seen many parallel sets that exclude the rookies found in the base set. But I can't explain why they do it. Maybe because only base sets can have "official" rookie cards. Far fetched, I know. You'd think they produced as much as possible to get you chasing (spending $).
Someday my cards may double in value and then be worth half of what I paid for them.
