Suspending players from international player transfers when no transfer agreement exists doesn’t seem like a punishment with any teeth.

Something told me the Krog signing by Vancouver was going to be an issue here, as well as the rights discrepancy with Filatov. With Krog especially, it all seemed to happen too fast and with little investigation of the Russian contract by the NHL.

Greg, if I’m not mistaken, the NHL honours IIHF suspensions.

The IIHF’s trying to be fair here.  I do believe that the NHL honours IIHF suspensions, but I certainly don’t believe that the Russians will do anything less than raise a huge stink over the technicalities regarding the date and time at which the non-competition agreement was signed versus the date at which Radulov entered into an agreement with Salavat Yulaev.

Medvedev and the KHL are playing nice, but they really want to leave the NHL with a good kick in the teeth for their trouble (you wouldn’t believe the treatises being written by the Russian press about finally achieving victories over the NHL in what they’ve perceived as a very hot war against teams that poach their best players since Igor Larionov made it legal for Russian players to cross the ocean and become “legionnaires,” and how the KHL has reasserted the concept that Russian hockey and the ultimate glory that is winning the World Championship supersede the dishonour that is playing in the NHL), and they’re gonna fight this tooth and nail.

but I certainly don’t believe that the Russians will do anything less than raise a huge stink over the technicalities regarding the date and time at which the non-competition agreement was signed versus the date at which Radulov entered into an agreement with Salavat Yulaev.

The IIHF said they would do something like this before the agreement was even discussed. For Russia, they would just be pissing in the wind.