Russian peace treaty

Hey Rich,

Any news on our Russian kids that are missing camp?

World Cup, that sounds great! Hope it will televised nationally in the states.

You know what, this may not be such a good thing for our two new Russians?! Are they currently under contract with Russian clubs? If so, those contract would have to be honored and our Russians will NOT be playing in North America this season.

Any info on their contract status Rich?

Rich, you are too fast. I saw this and was going to comment on it when I saw you already posted the story! You are unbelievable, thank you and Don very much for everything that you do!!

As DL stated in the past, that players can give a months notice, and pay some type of fee to get out of their contracts. I was wondering if this is still the case or if this new agreement prevents players from doing this going forward? I know you probably dont know any real specifics of the new deal at this point, but any info provided is greatly appreciated!

With demand for players likely to drive up salaries, the NHLPA sees the Russian newcomer as a positive development.

"It gives some of our guys another place to play," Kelly said. "It gives them some leverage they might not otherwise have, which is to present to their NHL teams that they have a competing offer from a KHL team and maybe improve their bargaining position.

"And if a young Russian player wants to come and play in the NHL he should have the freedom to do so."

Here is a link to the rest of the story.

http://www.nhl.com/nhl/app?articleid=368167&page=NewsPage&service=page

Rich,
If you get an interview chance here's a question I
m curious about. I thought that Loktionov was already living in Southern California, and training with Larionov?? Wouldn't he already have a visa??

Thanks for all the updates Rich.

I was hoping we'd have a big trade to talk about you know, like Army, Calder and Ersberg for either the guy from Edmonton by the name of Vishnovsky or the other guy from the Sharks "old" what's his name, you guys remember him, lives over in Manhattan Beach, oh yeeaaaa, Blake. I'm quite sure that will never happen, I just had to throw some sick humor out there, you guys were getting to excited about Prospects camp. And I don't blame us, after reading BoltThrowers scouting report I am also. Great job BT.

I have a feeling this is just gonna result in the Russian teams throwing even bigger money at players. This just leaves it up to the player(s) now, to determine if they really do want to play in the NHL.

To build on what Duracell mentioned, Voinov and Loktionov aren't even signed by the Kings, so there's no security on the Kings' side yet. Until they are, they could still be lured by lucractive Russian contracts to "stay overseas to play."

petey said: This just leaves it up to the player(s) now, to determine if they really do want to play in the NHL.

Well isn't that how it should be? If a player wants to make a lot of money playing in his own country, good for him. If a players wants to come over here and play in the best league in the world with the greatest trophy in all of sports, then thats great as well. Only that player can decide whats best for them anyway. Take a guy like Zherdev (just for example) who never seemed to want to really play in North America, but maybe came here because the money is better. Let those players stay in Russia while we develop better players in North America that want to be in the NHL. Russia gets to keep some of their star players, and the best of the Euros still come to the NHL, while Canada and the US can develop better players. Especially now with more of an influx of very solid American players entering the NHL, why not give those spots to them instead of the fringe european player who might last a few years and go back to Europe anyway. IMO everybody wins with a strong Russian league. You dont see MLB worrying about the Japanese baseball league, so why should we be worried about a strong Russian hockey league? Wait, do Dominicans play hockey? hmm...

everything was looking great until those Russians came in and stole our Radulov... in broad daylight!

Well played, SuperSonic420, well played.

http://hfboards.com/showthread.php?t=535216

This looks a little scary to me, and it mentions Voinov directly in the article.

With all this fun that has gone down with the Radulov and Filatov signings and subsequent transfer "agreement", I'm not sure that we'll see our recent draft picks any time soon.

It's going to be interesting to see how this all plays out. I'm sure each league is posturing prior to a formal written agreement, but don't expect the NHL to rollover and just give up on guys from Russia- most teams have too much invested for that to happen.

If this is an indication of things to come, Nashville and the NHL are expecting Radulov to honor the remaining year of his contract- http://predators.nhl.com/team/app/?service=page&page=NewsPage&articleid=368251

This certainly has big implications for Voinov and Loktionov. They'll most likely have to finish out their current contracts and not sign extensions. Of course, unlike here, under Russian law, Russian players have the right to basically opt-out of their contracts by giving 14 days notice (the team they then sign with has to buy out a portion of the remaining contract). I haven't seen any mention of this changing, and I don't see how the NHL-KHL agreement can override a national labor law.

Players should have the freedom to play wherever they want, but if they are signed to a contract, they should be expected to honor it and other teams/leagues should respect that.