NHL Rookie Card redemptions in Artifacts
By Susan Lulgjuraj | Beckett Hockey Editor
With the NHL in a lockout, card companies look for creative ways to get rookies into product.
But without games, there are no rookies. However, Upper Deck has already released 2012-13 NHL products and NHL rules state a player cannot appear on card until they have been in an NHL game.
See the problem.
So, Upper Deck is utilizing Rookie Card redemptions in 2012-13 Artifacts for specific teams – which is a concept used in Artifacts previously. The cards feature a team logo on front with “Artifacts Rookie Redemption” printed. But the exact player is not known.
There are also autograph rookie redemptions, which are designated by Roman numbers on the front. The players associated with these cards will likely be announced when the rookie class finally comes together.
So far, one of the most popular redemption cards has been for the Edmonton Oilers with the assumption that top draft pick Nail Yakupov will be that rookie once the season gets underway.
Even though the cards are normally used in Artifacts, this could give collectors an idea on how rookies could be handled in forthcoming products such as Upper Deck Series 1 with the ever-popular Young Guns.
Susan Lulgjuraj is an editor of Beckett Hockey. You can email her here with questions, comments or ideas. Follow her on Twitter here.
Artifacts always has rookie redemptions every year …
Copy/Pasted from my post in the hockey forums:
Actually, you only need to look back to 2004-05 SP Authentic Rookie redemption insert set to see the precedent for exactly this type of situation. They included both the 2004 Draft and 2005 draft rookies when making the redeemed cards
What Upper deck will probably do if the season is cancelled is combine both the 2012 Draft rookies with the 2013 draft rookies and combine them into one rookie pool to choose from in 2013.
That being said, you can probably assume that the Edmonton rookie redemption card will be Yakupov, unless by some stroke of god-like luck Edmonton ends up with YET ANOTHER 1st overall pick then it’s a toss-up as to if UD will choose yakupov or MacKinnon/Jones but the chance of that happening is insanely small…
However, this may be much more likely for the Autographed Rookie redemption case hits because UD chooses the best available rookies available and who knows if they will choose Yakupov or MacKinnon/Jones as the Autographed Rookie Redemption I…
i have two toronto maple leafs artifacts rookie redemption cards one has a blue dot on it one dosent whats the difference between the two
I pulled a rookie redemption card from 2012-13 upperdeck artifacts But its a wildcard#RED237 can u please explain to me the difference between the Team stamped redemptions and the wildcard redemptions