KHL/NHL Agreement Is Great, Some Teams.. Not Quite

Alexander Radulov is the latest casualty of the Kontinental Hockey League, as Radulov signed a deal that will see him suiting up with Ufa, the strange thing involving Radulov's deal is that it happened a day after the National Hockey League reached a deal with the KHL which the the Russian League agreed not to lure big name players away from the NHL with huge money offers, like the signings of David Vyborny, Jaromir Jagr and Ray Emery, all of the deals were worth more money then any of those players ever would of gotten in the NHL if they decided to play there this year. The KHL can still make offers to NHL players, but a part of the agreement was that they would be making fair offers to players instead of a huge amount to lure someone, the offers would be more competitive then overwhelming. I don't think we will be seeing another offer to Evgeni Malkin for 100 billion dollars, the two leagues have apparently a new found respect which is a good thing. Its complicated.

Anyways, back to the Radulov story, apparently Radulov wasn't a happy camper playing for Nashville and the team team took too long giving him a contract offer so he decided to go to Russia despite having one year left on his entry level contract, he said that the offer from the Russian team would earn him more money, while playing at home and having better conditions, If I was Radulov I would of taken the same deal, I wouldn't want to play in Nashville. Nashville shouldn't be a hockey team in my opinion, their fan base isn't as nearly as strong as it should be and there ownership situation is an absolute mess.

The team really missed out when it decided not to sell the team to Research In Motion CEO Jim Balsillie and opted instead to sell part of the team to venture capitalist William Del Biaggio and the rest to minority owners, Del Biaggio officially filed for bankruptcy and now the Predators ownership is once again in limbo. The funny thing is that tickets in Hamilton (where Balsillie was going to move the team too) were selling through the charts even though the team never moved their, just through rumors and a tentative agreement got the people going hockey crazy, imagine if their was a team in Hamilton now, do you think that Radulov would still be in the National Hockey League.. I do.

Don't get me wrong, I don't hate the idea of the National Hockey League expanding to new places, but teams like Nashville, Florida and dare I say Columbus look like huge mistakes when moving them to places like Hamilton which would sell out every game regardless of their record, a team in Hamilton could go 0-82 and still outsell any of those three teams list in ticket sales and merchandise. Anyways, this post is kind of getting off topic, so I am going to finish it by saying the Russian League and the National Hockey League are both doing the right things and the next team that Gary Bettman and company let into the league better be a viable and successful team with a hockey market, or its going to fail, like the Predators have been doing.

thanks for reading

Liam