This afternoon all parties involved in the Russia/KHL and NHL debate agreed to call a ceasefire and “respect” the contracts given to players by each league. This essentially means that the KHL can’t come and try to steal Evgeni Malkin while the NHL can’t go and take back Jaromir Jagr. Apparently this is the first step towards creating a new transfer agreement where teams would be compensated when they lose a player to a league overseas. Those who fail to follow the rules will be barred from the Olympics, which is even more important to those in Russia than it is to America. However, it’s important to note that this is essentially both sides coming together and saying that they will abide by the rules that they themselves set several weeks ago. It’s basically an agreement to try to figure this thing out later and something is clearly amiss.

Rumors are that Alexander Radulov, who was drafted 15th overall in 2004 and is currently under contract with the Nashville Predators, has decided to head to Russia. Details are scarce at the moment but if it turns out to be true he would be the first meaningful player to depart. Some might feel like Jaromir Jagr was meaningful, but he’s 36 years old and wanted a two-year deal for a lot of money and few teams were willing to give him the cash and term he was demanding. He wasn’t exactly lured away, it was essentially the only realistic option in his mind after New York told him no. However, Radulov is 22 years old and is coming off a great year with the Predators in which he scored 26 goals and added 32 assists in 81 games. He also had 2 goals and 2 assists in 6 playoff games brining his career total to 5 goals and 3 assists in only 10 post season games. It was a career year all around for the young winger and it’s hard for anyone who’s seen him play not to think that he’ll improve upon those numbers during this coming season and pretty quickly evolve into one of the NHL’s top snipers. Now it appears that we may not find out. If that is the case, this could get ugly very quickly.

Tags: Alexander Radulov, Russia, Transfer Agreement