Will it take Shirokov long to return to the KHL?
If someone doesn’t remember the story, two friends and CSKA players, Denis Parshin and Sergei Shirokov expressed their wish to leave CSKA this summer and move to the NHL. Long story shirt, Shirokov went to the NHL, Parshin stayed in CSKA.
The result: Shirokov is lost somewhere in the AHL, Parshin is leading his team in scoring and having 20+ minutes TOI.

Posted by Alexander on 11/29/09 at 01:59 PM ET

I don’t see this leading to big losses for the NHL.  Older guys like Jagr and Yashin don’t count, they’ve got their reasons ($, etc.) for playing in Russia.  If that continues to be a trend as Russian players age, so be it.

That leaves the KHL with borderline top 6 types who don’t otherwise have homes in the NHL.  There’s no point of Aleksy Morozov coming over to the NHL and playing on a 3rd or 4th line.

If/when the top Russian talent starts heading home, that’s when the KHL will become a threat, and I don’t see that happening.  There’s a connection between players struggling with the North American game and suddenly getting “homesick.”

Posted by HNBCTB on 11/29/09 at 02:22 PM ET

Midcard nhl players going to the khl are not a concern. Just because someone is a good 3rd liner in the nhl, does not make their lose an impact. Not one player on that list would be in the top 50 nhl scorers.Morozov was a player that never met potention due to being soft. If that works in khl, fine.  If you see stars migrate, then be concerned.

Posted by Paul on 11/29/09 at 02:36 PM ET

I don’t know that there’s nobody in the KHL that would be a top 50 scorer in the NHL. For starters, Jagr and Radulov would be strong candidates to be stars in the NHL. Even in a down season for Jagr, he scored 70 points. For all of Yashin’s off ice shenanigans, his on ice talent is undeniable.

Posted by qwertyman from NYC on 11/29/09 at 02:53 PM ET

A bit of hyperbole saying that list all could hold down nhl jobs.  Marcel hossa and weindhandl were busts in the nhl.  The only ones on that list who could hold down an nhl job are probably radulov, morozov and yashin.

Posted by Cartman on 11/29/09 at 02:53 PM ET

It is pretty poor to make a decision on how good a player is today based upon what he did in the NHL 2, 3 or 4 years ago and yet that is what these commenters feel confident attemping to do.

Watch these players who are starring in the KHL at the Olympics.  It is very likely that many of them wil have a significantly more successful Olympic tournament than do some NHLers who are there.  There is more talent in the KHL than many NHL fans admit.

Posted by PuckStopsHere on 11/29/09 at 03:36 PM ET

Morozov was an NHL player who had a great shot but little else (not fast, not strong, not gritty, not hardworking, loafed, poor defensively, not a notable playmaker, etc.). His shot was right up there with the best, but he wasn’t willing to skate into a position he could use it often enough to be a net positive to his team.

Out of curiosity, I took a look at Morozov’s highlights from last season.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i8vuijZ_n-E

I wasn’t looking for eye-popping, Linus Omark moves or anything (he doesn’t do much of that stuff, anyway), I was looking for where he was and how the opposition played him on these goals.

Most of these goals are coming from locations that NHL players have to pay the price to get to, but it doesn’t look like any price is being exacted from Morozov in the K. It also doesn’t look like players in the K do much shotblocking, either. Also, the speed is much slower and the goalies much smaller.

In other words, nothing I’m seeing here suggests to me that Morozov would be any better in the NHL now than he was five years ago, which is to say, a player able to score—at most—20 goals while contributing nothing else to his team. And since the NHL game is now faster and Morozov isn’t, it’s possible he wouldn’t even be able to do that.

Posted by steve on 11/29/09 at 05:22 PM ET

Are the performances of those former NHL’ers now playing in Russia indicative of how good they really are? Or of have poor the quality of play is in the KHL?

Granted, there may be a handful of Russian players in the KHL who could carve out decent NHL careers, and Radulov certainly would be a star in the NHL now if the Predators management hadn’t been so short-sighted.

That being said, I fail to see where the loss of middling talent is adversely affecting the NHL at all. The KHL tried and failed to land big name Russian stars in their prime. It’s not just the money but the level of competition. That’s why guys like Malkin, Ovechkin and Kovalchuk want to stay in the NHL.

I also don’t recall Tikhonov or Filatov being guaranteed anything when they were loaned back to their KHL team, other than there’s an understanding between that team and the Coyotes and Blue Jackets that the two will return next fall to their respective NHL teams training camps.

A good point was recently raised that we might see more of these kind of loans as it’s believed the Russian players and their NHL teams would be better served by having those young players return to their former KHL teams on loan rather than playing in the minors as from the players POV it might rebuild their confidence to return home for a season and then return to try again.

That remains to be seen but it would certainly avoid losing those players to bigger contracts from the KHL plus it would also go a long way to easing tensions between the two leagues.

Posted by Lyle Richardson from Charlottetown, PEI, Canada on 11/29/09 at 06:45 PM ET