“The Czech Ice Hockey Association has decided not to sign the IIHF’s player transfer deal with the NHL after the 14 hockey clubs in the Czech Extraliga voted in favor of ending the current deal immediately. This likely means there will be no regulations surrounding the transfer of players between the European teams and the NHL next season.
The existing NHL-IIHF player transfer agreement was originally supposed to last until 2011, but the Euro nations in the agreement demanded it be reopened in December 2007. In order to gain time to negotiate a new, long-term agreement, the IIHF and NHL have been working to arrive at a one-year extension of the existing agreement.
Support for the one-year extension agreement has recently been secured from five of the six main European countries, but the NHL requires that all six European countries support the arrangement.”
According to an NHL spokesman, the league isn’t likely to accept a transfer agreement with just five of the remaining countries.
Both the NHL and the president of the IIHF would prefer a transfer agreement be in place, otherwise the NHL would have to negotiate on a player-by-player basis.
The Czechs, like the Russians before them, claim that they’re taking this stand in hopes of slowing the loss of their young players to the NHL, but the real reason is monetary. Quite simply, the Czechs and the Russians aren’t happy with what they’re being compensated for the loss of those players and believe they’re entitled to more.
That may well be, but considering they’re in no position financially to out-bid the NHL for their best players they’re not dealing from a position of strength, and thus are exercising the only real option they have by backing out of the current transfer agreement.
The NHL would prefer a transfer agreement because of the ease in paying a set rate of compensation for buying players out of contracts rather than negotiating on an individual basis, where the cost could vary wildly depending on the player, the team and the league he plays in.
This will also have implications on the NHL draft. One reason why the number of Russian players selected in recent drafts has declined was the absence of a player transfer agreement between the NHL and the Russian Hockey Federation. It was part of the reason why highly touted forward prospect Alexei Cherepanov – predicted to be among the top five picks in the 2007 NHL entry draft - was selected 17th overall.
Obviously now NHL teams will be leery of selecting Czech and Russian prospects as high picks in future drafts without a transfer agreement, but it won’t stop those players being selected. Instead, Czech and Russian prospects can expect to go in the later rounds unless they’re considered “can’t miss” prospects like Alexander Ovechkin and Evgeni Malkin were in their respective draft years.
Most NHL clubs will likely be patient, waiting for most of their young Czech and Russian prospects to complete their contracts, except in the case of the aforementioned “can’t miss” types, where the teams will be more willing to negotiate on an individual basis.
The absence of a transfer agreement is also risky for the Russians and Czechs. Just as players under NHL contracts have been able to bail on their existing NHL contracts to sign more lucrative deals with countries that aren’t part of a transfer agreement, so too can players in those leagues now do the same to come to the NHL.
That would hurt the countries without a transfer agreement more than it’ll hurt the NHL. The European leagues lack the financial clout to successfully tempt away the NHL's best players, thus having to content themselves with fading stars like Alexei Yashin, disappointing youngsters like Alexander Perezehogin, or veterans past their prime unable to sign with NHL teams.
Conversely, if a rising young superstar wants to come to the NHL, there’s little that their team or country can do to stop them from bolting on their contracts short of restricting their travel, which the Malkin saga two years ago proved was a fruitless venture.
At some point, either later this year, next year or several years from now a new transfer agreement will be hammered out between the NHL and the IIHF, one that will hopefully prove more mutually beneficial. In the interim, the absence of an agreement may slow the flood of young European talent, particularly Russian and Czech talent, to North America and the NHL, but it won’t stop it.
The NHL is the top professional hockey league in the world, and the best young players around the world dream of strutting their stuff on the NHL stage along with the wealth and fame an NHL career could bring them.
Ultimately, that’s a draw much more powerful than the chance to play in front of the hometown fans.
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'm Lyle Richardson, also known as Spector, Foxsports.com 's "Prince of Pucks".,which is based on the fact I live in Prince Edward Island, Canada and I couldn't think of a better byline. I've been an NHL hockey commentator since 1998 on my website, Spector's Hockey, and I'm a contributing writer for Foxsports.com , The Hockey News and Eishockey News. I'm also a regular on The Faceoff Hockey Show and a frequent guest on "The Late Crew" on The Team 1200 Ottawa.
