The Two-Line Pass

"Ehhh, what's up unresolvable international labor conflict?"

Under a shroud of great secrecy, Gary Bettman met with KHL czar (see what I did there?) Alexander Medvedev to discuss a possible resolution to this whole “a-KHL-team-signed-Alexander-Radulov-while-he-was-still-under-contract-with-an-NHL-team-and-ain’t-that-a-bitch” situation. Try and guess how squared away the situation is now.

“I would say it’s fair to say that no progress was made on the Radulov situation,’’ Daly said.

Sounds about right.

Of course, back in Mother Russia, Radulov is trumpeting the pro-Russian cause with a gun at his back.

“(The) NHL for 15 years brought young players from Europe, first and foremost from Russia,’’ Radulov said, according to russianprospects.com. “I think that it is time to end this. Simply put: time to stop robbing us!’’

I understand how good Radulov is and I understand what a bad precedent this is to set, but neither side is going to budge on this, so let’s just call the assembled lawyer-armies off.

“He was under contract with us,” the NHL goons will shout.

“Yeah but we didn’t have a transfer agreement,” the KHL suits will counter.

And on and on.

The only chance Bettman has to counter this is a duck season/rabbit season-type Bugs Bunny switcheroo. This plan could also involve Bettman dressing up as “Gabriella Bettman” and seducing Medvedev into shooting himself in the face with a shotgun in such a way that the lower half of his face will be on the wrong side of his head.

Suck it, Nashville

Ah those crazy Ruskies. They’ll do anything to make Gary Bettman cry tears of impotent rage.

The other day, Alexander Radulov was introduced (click for moon language) by his new team Ufa-based Salavat Yulaev, in a press conference. Just to rub salt in the NHL’s wounds, the Russian press has delighted in refering to Radulov as an “ex-Nashville player.”

At the press conference, Radulov said he “gladly accepted” Ufa’s offer to get out of the United States (if I’m reading Russian correctly, that is).

According to the New York Times’ Slap Shot blog, which has been nice enough to link to this fledgling blog a few times, Salavat Yulaev has a team budget of about 620 million rubles, or roughly $26.5 million, less than half of the NHL salary cap. With the contracts some of these teams are giving out, that figure is in the top four in all of the KHL.

Meanwhile, Radulov and Ufa are still under IIHF investigation, not that that matters much to any parties involved. The NHL is still hoping the KHL will magically void the contract.

“We continue to expect the KHL and the Russian Ice Hockey Federation to take a position and refuse to aid and abet a blatant breach of contract which, through their inaction to date, they have now become party to,” Daly said via e-mail.

The IIHF will come to an agreement by “mid-August.” Ask Mats Sundin about deadlines like that. The IIHF could rule that if Radulov was improperly signed by Ufa (he was), that the player or team is not eligible for the Champions League. Further, if Radulov is ruled to be in violation, he and Russia could be banned from IIHF events for an undertermined amount of time.

Is Alexander Radulov, good though he may be, really worth this kind of headache?

This man desperately wants Tomas Mojzis and Jason Krog to play hockey for him

It’s good that the Kontinental Hockey League and the NHL have hammered out that informal transfer agreement, because when the IIHF suspends six players for possibly illegal transfers to and from the new league, it really helps the process to have everyone cooperat…

“We do not accept the idea of suspending the contracts because this has not been agreed on by KHL and NHL,” said KHL President Alexander Medvedev in a statement.

Oh.

Well to be fair, this isn’t just anyone they’re suspending. It’s Alexander Radulov, Nikita Filatov, Thomas Mojzis, Jason Krog, Fedor Fedorov and Viktor Tikhonov. When Jason Krog can’t play, you might as well shut the whole hockey world down.

It doesn’t bother me that these players got suspended. They signed contracts and should have honor them. But to have the Russians want it to work both ways is embarrassing to the league, unsurprising though the revelations may be.

Medvedev is pissed because all five that aren’t Radulov signed North American deals.

• Filatov, the fifth overall pick in this year’s draft, is still property of CSKA Moscow.
• Tikhonov signed with the Coyotes on July 1 even though he’s considered Severstal Cherepovets property, as is Krog, who signed a deal with the Russian team in May before signing with Vancouver a few weeks ago.
• Feodorov signed with New Jersey after playing with Dynamo Moscow last year.
• Mojzis, it seems, played roller hockey in the World Championships last year and apparently has signed with the Wild organization.

On the other hand, despite Radulov being in the middle of a deal with Nashville, his signing with Ufa is perfectly acceptable to the Ruskies. This is the reason we had a Cold War, Russia. Unless you want some nukes tilted toward Bashkortostan, you’d better give us back Radulov posthaste.

До тех пор, suckers!

Around mid-afternoon yesterday, it was announced that the NHL and the new Kontinental Hockey League (the expanded former Russian Super League) would both “respect” the other league’s contracts and agree not to poach players from one league or the other.

The NHL had grown increasingly concerned with several Russian clubs’ desire to lure the dynamic Evgeni Malkin back to his homeland with big, tax-free contracts. There hasn’t been a transfer agreement between the leagues in three years, but that’s all been sorted out now, and everyone’s just fine with the agreement.

“Everyone in the room agreed that for the foreseeable future everyone will respect everybody’s contracts,” NHL deputy commissioner Bill Daly said.

Players’ union director Paul Kelly said all parties recognized the need for “clear respect between leagues.”

…

“There is no sense to make a war,” IIHF president Rene Fasel said. “Everyone agrees we could make a war very easily, but with no winner. The loser will be the game.

“Even if we don’t have a transfer agreement today we have a very good understanding of each other.”

But then later in the night, word got out that Predators forward Alexander Radulov had signed a deal with Russian team Ufa despite still being under contract in Nashville. Here are some highlights from an interview with the Russian paper Sport Express (click only if you can read Cyrillic moon writing).

“I have told them several times that I have an offer from Ufa and a great desire to play in Russia. I told them that what Ufa offered was much better than there in Nashville. They listened to me and said they would call back. Up until now I have received no call. Looks like they did not want to keep me that much, or maybe thought I would not dare take such a step.”

Or MAYBE it’s because you’re still currently under contract with them and they couldn’t just renegotiate a new contract in the middle of an existing one, and certainly not one that could come close to matching the $13 million over three years in tax-free cash the Russian team offered.

The IIHF has since demanded that the Ufa contract be voided, but KHL president Alexander Medvedev has since said that the transfer agreement doesn’t take effect until July 14, so no big deal (again, moon language).

Frankly this all seems a little fishy to me. If you take a look at his player history, Radulov has been committed to the North American development process since being drafted, playing full seasons for the QMJHL’s Quebec Ramparts and then even playing in the AHL for Milwaukee, the concept of which causes so many players to balk and head back to Mother Russia rather than face the indignity of playing hockey in Iowa.

If Radulov is forced to come back, that will be the most awkward moment in the NHL since Mark Messier met Gary Coleman.