Monday evening, the National Hockey League and Russia’s Kontinental Hockey League signed a formal agree to respect each other’s contracts. The agreement will only allow free agents to jump from one league to the other.
The agreement will put to an end of several years of battling for players between the leagues. It will also prevent players from leaving a club whom they are under contract with to play in the other league. Much of the controversy and ill will between the NHL and KHL was created in 2008 when Nashville Predators star player Alexander Radulov left the Music City while still under contract in the 2008 summer off-season to play in Russia.
“I sent him (KHL president Alexander Medvedev) a letter confirming that we recognize and respect the validity of the standard terms of KHL SPCs,” NHL deputy commissioner Bill Daly wrote in an e-mail to ESPN.com’s Pierre LeBrun on Monday.
“But that’s always been our position — this doesn’t represent a change for us.”
