The NHL’s salary cap and its current player transfer agreement with the International Ice Hockey Federation resulted in a growing exodus since the past summer of players signing with European teams.

While the NHL and the IIHF will be re-opening the agreement in January aimed at better compensation for European teams and improved player development, no changes will be made regarding the salary cap.

That still means players who might have had jobs with NHL teams in the past will be faced with playing in Europe if they hope to keep their playing careers alive.

That’s led some observers to suggest this weakens the NHL talent base whilst bolstering the European leagues, especially with recent speculation of Russian billionaire Alex Medvedev forming a rival European league.

A close examination of the caliber of the talent bolting for Europe since July 2007, however, indicates no weakening of the NHL talent base.

The most notable of those players include Alexei Yashin, Petr Nedved, Aleksey Morozov, Oleg Saprykin, Jan Bulis, Anson Carter, Dmitri Afanasenkov, Jamie Lundmark, Ville Nieminen, Ossi Vaananen, Danny Markov, and Ed Belfour.

Not to be cruel, but this list consists of has-beens and never-weres. Of this list, only Markov and Vaananen would still have value today to NHL teams.

Most of the former NHL’ers who headed overseas since the summer made little significant contribution to their respective NHL teams last season, hence the reason they were unable to land new contracts.

Some, like the LA Kings’ Oleg Tverdovsky, NY Rangers’ Darius Kasparaitis, Boston Bruins’ Stanislav Chistov and Columbus Blue Jackets Alex Svitov, broke existing NHL contracts to play in the Russian Super League. Russia is currently not part of the NHL-IIHF player transfer agreement.

Those players did so either to avoid toiling in the minors or to earn more money and playing time back in Russia, but only the Blue Jackets were upset over losing their player. The departures of Tverdovsky, Kasparaitis and Chistov were greeted almost with silence by their respective NHL teams. The Rangers actually encourage Kasparaitis to return to Russia.

The reason is quite clear: they were no longer good enough to be NHL players, and their respective NHL teams were pleased to be free of their remaining contractual obligations.

It’s their inability to play well enough to merit NHL contracts that kept most of the aforementioned players out of the league, not the salary cap.

If Yashin, Tverdovsky, Nedved, and Kasparaitis were still in their playing prime it would be a worthwhile concern that their absence hurts the NHL talent. Nobody misses them now, and if the European leagues want them, they’re welcome to them.

If impending free agents like Alexander Ovechkin, Nicklas Lidstrom, Marian Hossa, Corey Perry or Dion Phaneuf were signed by European teams next summer it would merit concern.  However, the NHL is the showcase of the best talent in professional hockey and there’s no European team or league that can competitively bid for the NHL’s best talent.

That’s why some of this concern about a European “super league” challenging the NHL’s supremacy is baseless.

Any new “super league” would either have to convince the top teams in the currently established European leagues to join them or would have to create new teams in those countries.

Don’t expect either prospect to be successful. Many of the current European leagues have rich legacies and aren’t about to tear themselves apart to join a new “super league”. Fans of those respective established leagues won’t transfer their loyalties from their current teams any more than most NHL fans did when the World Hockey Association was in its heyday in the 1970s.

Furthermore, many of the European teams lack NHL-style facilities to pack in the kind of audiences required to drum up the revenue required for NHL-style payrolls, and it remains to be seen if European hockey fans would warm to the prospect of paying much higher ticket prices.

Even the richest teams in the Russian Super League having payrolls less than half of those of the top NHL teams. It takes big bucks to entice the top NHL talent to Europe and that kind of money just isn’t there.

Ultimately, the level of talent heading to Europe won’t make European leagues significantly stronger and aren’t a direct challenge to the NHL’s superiority.  

A report recently released by the International Ice Hockey Federation (IIHF) noted that nearly 80 percent of European players who play in the CHL (the Canadian junior leagues, where the bulk of players are drafted by NHL teams) never make it to the National Hockey League.

In recent years many young European hockey hopefuls have gone over to play in Canada supposedly to help them adapt to the North American game. The IIHF report recommends that most of those positions going to European players in the CHL should instead be going to North American players.

The report was released by the IIHF in hopes of allowing European players to play longer in the European leagues to not only hone their skills but also to bolster European hockey.

Hockey Night in Canada’s controversial analyst Don Cherry claims this report supports his long-held contention that young European players have received preferential treatment over Canadian players.

"You have all these Canadian kids who are working their #### off, just trying to get drafted”, Cherry told the Toronto Globe & Mail. “And they were passed over for guys that are Europeans. The Canadians were just as good. It boggled by my mind."

Cherry also told the G&M that cultural differences and language are to blame for the slow development of European players in the CHL.

His comments infuriated Ken Campbell of The Hockey News, who points out that “elite players, for the most part, will find their way to the NHL whether they play in Europe, the Canadian junior system or U.S. college hockey.”

While Cherry cited former Chicago Blackhawks prospect Igor Radulov as an example of why young Europeans struggle in the CHL, Campbell cites Marian Hossa, Petr Sykora and Tomas Vanek as star NHL’ers who adapted well to playing in either the CHL or the American college ranks.

Campbell also points out that, while nearly 80 percent of European prospects may not make it to the NHL, over 20 percent of them do. “The fact is, the CHL would love to have a graduation rate among Canadian players to the NHL that would be anywhere near that”, Campbell writes. “Next time you go to a junior game, take a close look at both benches. If more than three or four players from the two teams combined end up having a lengthy NHL career, you’ve pretty much hit the jackpot.”

He also points out that the CHL allows only two European players per team and “theoretically, they are taking up the spots of the two worst home-grown players on those teams, players who probably wouldn’t have had a snowball’s chance in Hades of making the NHL anyway.”

I have plenty of respect for Don Cherry, whose hockey sense is usually far sharper than his critics give him credit for, but I’ve never been comfortable with his rants against European players. I’m firmly on side with Campbell on this subject.

I’d love to hear your thoughts on this folks!

The recent signings of Russian prospects Evgeny Malkin (Penguins), Alexei Mikhonov (Oilers) and Andrei Taratukin (Flames) by their respective NHL teams is expected to generate a legal challenge from the Russian Hockey Federation.

To which I say, good luck with that.

If the Russians had any real chance of winning this case, of not only preventing these players from playing for their NHL teams but also to legally force them to return to Russia to play for their former clubs, I doubt the NHL would've approved their new contracts.

There are too many things working against the Russians.

The most notable is that two-week written notice "escape clause" in Russian business law, which all three players adhered to. Another is that their legal challenge will unlikely be enforced in North America, as Malkin's agent JP Barry recently told a Pittsburgh newspaper.

Most importantly, the Russian Hockey Federation has not signed off on the current transfer agreement between the NHL and the International Ice Hockey Federation (IIHF), meaning NHL teams aren't entitled to pay Russian clubs compensation when their best players sign with NHL clubs.

In Malkin's situation, the Russian's case is particularly thin. In addition to the aforementioned, the front office of his former Russian club broke a verbal promise to allow him to play in the NHL this coming season, the owner and management followed him home and pressured him into signing a one-year contract at 3 AM, and withheld his passport.

For all the Russian bluster, they probably know they don't have a legal leg to stand on.

Now I agree with their argument that compensation under the current transfer agreement between the NHL and IIHF is insufficient. European teams should receive more for losing their top players to the NHL.

But the Russians "go it alone" stance has done nothing to improve their chances of getting a better deal on their own.

Furthermore, they're worsening an already bad situation. Their refusal to sign off on the agreement could result in fewer Russian players getting drafted in the near future, and those who do could be loath to sign long term contracts with their Russian teams, preferring to keep their option of playing in North America open.

The Russians would be best served by signing off on the current agreement, then marshall support from the other European clubs in hopes of presenting a united front for better compensation when the deal comes up for renewal.

Otherwise, the Russian Hockey Federation better prepare to lose more players for next to nothing to the NHL.