It’s that time again: speculation about who will jump to the KHL! Yay!
No, seriously, Pavel Datsyuk talked to the Detroit Free Press recently about possibly playing in the KHL, specifically for Avtomobilist Yekaterinburg, before he hangs up his skates.
“It is hard to talk about it now,” Datsyuk told the Russian publication Sportbox, per the Detroit Free Press. “My dream is to play for the (KHL team) remains, but (I have to) look at how the rest of my hockey career (goes).”
Keep in mind: Datsyuk is about to start a three-year, $22.5 million contract with the Detroit Red Wings, so it’s fairly reasonable to believe he isn’t going anywhere in that time frame. I only say “fairly reasonable” because of that whole ugly Ilya Kovalchuk thing that I’m sure no one in New Jersey is bitter about in the least.
KHL president Alex Medvedev isn’t helping the speculation, either. He’s been hinting that Russian stars might be departing the NHL in the not too distant future. When asked by Sport-Express.ru about Alex Ovechkin and Evgeni Malkin in specific, Medvedev suggested “there might be good surprises in a year.”
On the surface, it seems like typical speculation as a means to drive up interest in the KHL as a big-time league and to kick up stories. Ovechkin and Malkin are both under contract with Washington and Pittsburgh, respectively, for the long-term. Both would have to negotiate out of their NHL contracts before they could sign in the KHL, according to the KHL-NHL memorandum. Medvedev’s quote becomes slightly more threatening when you realize that agreement is set to expire on June 30, 2015.
The idea that Russian stars may want to end their careers in Russia isn’t far-fetched and doesn’t seem to pose a problem that will severely damage the NHL. If they wait until their careers are on the downside in the NHL, they’ll likely have been usurped by bigger and more marketable stars anyways. All this shows is that the NHL is still the place to be, but foreign-born players might want to return home in the twilight of their careers.
Then again, until anyone starts defecting, it’s all the same old heresy.
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