The NHL and the Russian league reached an agreement today that should end the threat of players such as Kings draft picks Voinov and Loktionov staying overseas to play. Voinov and Loktionov have been dealing with visa issues, which is why they haven’t been at the prospects camp. The Kings were hoping to get at least one of them in town before the weekend. Here’s the meat of the AP story…
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ZURICH, Switzerland — The NHL reached an agreement with a new Russian hockey league Thursday that temporarily ends the threat of players being lured away by big-money offers.
The pact to respect player contracts across all borders followed offers made last month by teams in Russia’s Continental Hockey League — which begins play in September — to entice Evgeni Malkin out of the final year of his deal with the Pittsburgh Penguins.
It was reached at a meeting of the NHL, the NHL Players’ Association and international hockey leagues in Zurich, the home of the International Ice Hockey Federation.
“Everyone in the room agreed that for the foreseeable future everyone will respect everybody’s contracts,” NHL deputy commissioner Bill Daly said.
Union director Paul Kelly said all parties recognized the need for “clear respect between leagues.”
The deal was brokered with Russian league founder Alexander Medvedev, who had given his teams a green light to approach players like Malkin.
Medvedev was nominated to the working group that will meet in New York in September in hopes of creating an international transfer agreement to replace the one that lapsed last month after six European leagues backed out.
Russia had withdrawn three years ago.
The group will also look at plans to globalize the game, including holding a World Cup in 2012.