You violated the terms of a contract you signed with the Nashville Predators, Mr. Radulov.  Your services belonged to Nashville until your contract expired, and you didn’t honour that obligation.

Posted by George James Malik from South Lyon, MI on 08/15/08 at 07:15 AM ET

Ah let him go George.  We’re all better off without him......Well, Nashville, maybe not so much!

Posted by Jim_Korn on 08/15/08 at 08:45 AM ET

“time to stop robbing us”

Nobody put a gun to his head and forced him to come to the NHL. As far as I know.

Posted by Shane from Saskatoon on 08/15/08 at 10:29 AM ET

Why can’t the Preds just negotiate an equitable cash compensation with the KHL?

Just an honest question, folks.

Posted by SYF from Las Vegas, NV on 08/15/08 at 10:51 AM ET

Three Issues:

1) Robbed Us
So, paying players millions of american dollars amounts to robbery?

2) Done nothing wrong
Contract law in the united states does not allow the undersigned to break the agreement, given a two week notice, as was the case in Russia.

3) First and foremost from Russia
Wrong again. In 2007-2008, Russia had 30 players in the league, behind Canada, United States, Cezch Republic, Sweden and Finland. In 2002-2003, Russia was still behind all but Finland. The ‘theft’ from europe does not rely on Russia, first and foremost.

Posted by underthechestnuttree from waterloo, ontario on 08/15/08 at 11:04 AM ET

It would be very difficult for him to come back to the Preds now. Especially with this latest article telling his true feelings. Let him go. I don’t want him if he doesn’t want to be here. We’ve been dealt worse hands before.

Posted by PredNeck from Hicktown on 08/15/08 at 11:47 AM ET

Why can’t the Preds just negotiate an equitable cash compensation with the KHL?

Just an honest question, folks.

SYF, under the current CBA, that’s considered circumvention of the salary cap as the 50-some-odd percent of Hockey-Related-Revenues that’s paid to players can only be paid to players, and cannot be used for any other purpose, including attempting to negotiate a player’s release from another team.

It’s and it’s out-and-out illegal according to the CBA.  The NHL decided that it’s not kosher (I’d imagine that the NHLPA would have no problem with the NHL spending a portion of the hockey-related-revenues that the owners take in to secure a player’s release).

Posted by George James Malik from South Lyon, MI on 08/15/08 at 12:33 PM ET

Thanks, George!  I see the implications now.

Posted by SYF from Las Vegas, NV on 08/15/08 at 01:08 PM ET

But George, that’s if the NHL team is paying to secure release, isn’t it? That’s been the traditional scenario. This one is the other way, they would be receiving the payment.

I know the league frowns on that as well, but I don’t know if it’s against the CBA. I believe the KHL has offered to pay, but the NHL refuses to consider any scenario that doesn’t see Radulov honour his contract in Nashville.

Posted by Adam on 08/18/08 at 06:07 PM ET

No teams paying for releases anymore, and no compensation for swiping players.  That’s how the CBA works. 

The KHL has basically come to the table informing the NHL that the president of Russia as the league’s head means that the KHL is an “equal partner” league that can set its own damn rules and negotiate whatever terms it wants.  That pisses off the NHL to no end, because they’ve never dealt with negotiations where they’re handcuffed by their own collective bargaining agreement before.

In the “old” NHL, you used to be able to flex your bigger financial muscles and get your way, and the KHL’s done everything in its power to exploit the fact that the CBA’s ironclad status didn’t account for the rise of a rival league that’s basically subsidized by the country’s deep-pocketed government, and is bent upon exacting “revenge” under the Russian-media-proffered argument that Russian hockey must be inherently better than NHL hockey, and if the two leagues were ever on even financial terms, players would naturally gravitate to a “better” Russian league.

That’s never going to be accurate, but the Russians are sure trying to screw the NHL where it hurts while they build a league that’s going to give top-flight minor pros and a few NHL’ers who fall out of favour a much better opportunity to earn a living than the AHL ever could. 

To me, the biggest irony of the situation is that the KHL exists not just because the Russians are trying to keep their top talent “at home,” but also because their developmental hockey systems are so fundamentally messed up that the KHL’s had to change its own initial rules so that it could bring in enough imports to compete.

The KHL was initially supposed to be a league that would be a self-contained bastion of “pure” Russian hockey, but the very middling talent pool available to their now-large league is why they’re predating upon the NHL and AHL.

Posted by George James Malik from South Lyon, MI on 08/18/08 at 08:04 PM ET