Why is it that when a Russian player bails on his team to come to the NHL, no one here says, “Gee, he should honor his contract”, but when it works the other way around everyone is indignant?  Sauce for the goose.

Posted by Matthew on 09/05/07 at 10:37 AM ET

Because the Russian government is made up of godless Communists, while the Canadian and American governments are godless capitalists, and that makes North America better! 

Just kidding.  Aside from the blatant self-interest in wanting the players we want, and never mind what anyone else might want, it is true that the Russian teams do pressure their star players more to sign contracts that they might not want to sign, but feel coerced into doing so.  With that exception (no one should be forced into a contract), I agree with you.  Without a transfer agreement, players can ignore their contracts either way across the Atlantic, and if neither country likes it, then work out an agreement to prevent it from happening and it won’t occur.

Posted by Baroque from Michigan on 09/05/07 at 01:43 PM ET

I don’t quite understand why Taratukhin went home.  He had a really hellish year in the AHL last season because his wife and son weren’t granted visas until March (thank you, Department of Homeland Insecurity), but he stuck it out, played very well, and before this season, he’d reiterated his desire to make the NHL—which he probably would have, from what I understand about the Flames’ plans for him. 

Salavat Yulaev must have thrown a ton of that Baskhortostan government money at him (they’re celebrating their 450th anniversary as a “sovereign Russian province,” so the government’s provided so much money for the small-market team that Stanislav Chistov, Alexander Perezhogin, Andrei Taratukhin, and a few other former NHL’ers are playing in sunny Ufa this season)...

But I don’t really see why being upset that he didn’t honour his contract is surprising.  If the Russian teams can do it, the NHL teams can do it, too.  It certainly doesn’t change anything, but it’s understandable.

Posted by George Malik from South Lyon, MI on 09/05/07 at 02:47 PM ET

There’s no place like home

No really true, the first to sign with Salavat Yulaev was Canadian.

Money, money, money…

Posted by PeterGower on 09/05/07 at 03:38 PM ET

Maybe one of the problems is that, while neither side likes the lack of an agreement, both sides haven’t disliked it at the same time.  When Malkin et. al. were on there way over here, much of North America didn’t seem to care all that much about an agreement.  Now this summer most of the player movement across the ocean is in the other direction… perhaps now Russia doesn’t care as much about an agreement.  With the CBA and the status quo, Russia seems able to be, at least, competitive with the NHL, especially for entry-level talent.  Maybe “stealing” players from the other side doesn’t seem as big a crime to them this year as it did a year ago.

I also think the “no place like home” concept has some validity.  Geez, when I was the age of some of these guys, trying to forge my way in the world was sometimes a pretty scary proposition.  And that was within my own culture and with a language I know well (though some of you who are reading this may seriously doubt that latter claim).  Maybe for some of these guys the desire to play in the NHL, the world’s best league, just isn’t enough to overcome the fear, or difficulty, or discomfort, of having to be here to do it.

Posted by BobTheZee on 09/05/07 at 11:01 PM ET

What???  I actually wrote “on there way???”  Arrggghhhh!!!  Please, when you read that, pretend that it says “on their way.”  Thank you and good night.

Posted by BobTheZee on 09/05/07 at 11:26 PM ET

First and foremost, the man with the Bachelor’s in English Language and Literature absolves you of your grammatical sin…It does happen!

There are definitely cultural issues, given that Russians don’t necessarily learn English in school, but the biggest issue for Russian players is that the team takes care of their apartment, car, and sometimes their utilities, bank account, and even groceries and wake-up calls, from what I understand, as part of their contract.  The players have to stay on “barracks” in some cases when they skate twice or three times a day, they can be docked pay for missing passes or shots, and the contracts aren’t guaranteed, but if you want to be taken care of, a Superleague team will do that—unless, of course, their sponsorships go belly up, because they then stop paying you and still expect you to show up for work…

Russian teams, for lack of more descriptive terms, still operate, to some extent, like “army” clubs, and there’s obviously a very collectivized mentality…but the honest truth is that you hear some players, regardless of their nationality, explain that, when they signed their first NHL contract at 18 or 19 (late-bloomers excluded), some of them didn’t know how to open a bank account, pay their bills, or lease a car.  It’s a little harder if you don’t speak the language, obviously.

All of that being said?

I’m not surprised that the tide’s turned during this particular summer.  We’re in the third year of the CBA, and it’s only this summer that most NHL GMs finally said, “OH, wait, if we spend up to the cap right away, we can’t make any trades, and that’s bad, so we’ll leave a little ‘cushion’ out there.” 

The GM’s learning curves more or less ate up the money that would go to those late-summer “discount” signings who filled in holes in the roster, and, as a result, the players who would constitute the spending of said “cushion” will have to either wait until the beginning of the season—around the time training camp starts, 99% of GM’s would prefer to see any personnel issues taken care of cheaply and in-house via try-outs, prospects, or guys who are on the NHL “bubble” with 2-way contracts than to spend guaranteed money against the cap on a “just in case” player—or they can get a guaranteed paycheck overseas.

We don’t make such a big deal out of the fact that there are always some borderline NHL’ers and players who once produced—say, guys like Nils Ekman—who go over to various European leagues, and they usually number somewhere between 20-40, depending on the year, but the fact that the Russians can offer so much more money than anybody else, and, of course, the lack of a transfer agreement, are highlighting the fact that a few North Americans are heading over to Russia, and a few more Russians than usual are heading home.

Still, nobody exactly made a fuss when Jamie McLennan’s contract was terminated by Metallurg Magnitogorsk a few weeks ago, nor did anybody seem to notice that two Canadian junior players who moved from the Quebec League to Omsk were summarily told to go home by one of the Superleague’s biggest teams.

The honest truth is that the Russians do want a transfer agreement…they just want very different terms, including a graduated system of payment that depends upon the player’s perceived impact, than a certain amount of guaranteed money, and a flat per-player fee on top of it. 

The Russian developmental system, which, as the Super Series has shown, stinks right now, could dearly use the around $6-10 million per year that the NHL guarantees a country’s hockey federation for signing on with an IIHF transfer agreement, but they want the NHL’s individual clubs to have to pay over a million dollars for an Ovechkin or Malkin—I believe Dynamo was willing to settle for a little in excess of $1 million for Ovechkin, but Metallurg wanted “tens of millions”—and the NHL simply won’t pay based upon potential.

Sans a transfer agreement, the NHL can get away with signing players who still have valid contracts with Russian teams—which, in Malkin’s case, was signed under duress—and the Russian Superleague can get away with signing players who still have valid NHL contracts, Mark Gandler’s clients excluded (Gandler inevitably sends one promising NHL prospect home because he claims it’s unfair that an NHL team refuses to pay a second-year player who scored 10 goals $2 million, for example).

That’s the long story short.

Posted by George Malik from South Lyon, MI on 09/06/07 at 01:42 AM ET