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The "Now That We've Had Time To Digest This Thread"


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The NA market is unique on this planet in that it has 350 million people with high purchasing power that all speak the same language and share the same culture. Even with your ironically socialist-like draft model and salary cap system, the american leagues offer very high salaries because of said market, even though I think entry-level and two-way contracts will one day be a thing of the past. Especially so if the KHL keeps expanding west into Europe and includes clubs in Sweden, Finland, Germany, Switzerland for example.

 

The thing is, the KHL growing wider just makes it even less desirable to play in.  The travel is awful.  And unless these teams are also owned by oligarchs with bottomless pockets (entirely possible, but to date teams outside of Russia seem to have little or no interest in trying to attract NHL level players), they won't compete either in the KHL or for NHL level players.

 

The NHL will not break its entry level and two-way contract system to keep foreign players.

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Remains to be seen. The KHL could easily split up into east & west or some variation of that to keep travel distances down. NA is fairly large as well. :P

It does seem unlikely that KHL or any european hockey league will challenge the NHL any time soon though, outside of Russia the rich guys just care about soccer. But you are already hemorrhaging european players because of the mentioned systems. Eventually you'll likely start seeing more NA players going to the KHL for the money as well.

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Remains to be seen. The KHL could easily split up into east & west or some variation of that to keep travel distances down. NA is fairly large as well. :P It does seem unlikely that KHL or any european hockey league will challenge the NHL any time soon though, outside of Russia the rich guys just care about soccer. But you are already hemorrhaging european players because of the mentioned systems. Eventually you'll likely start seeing more NA players going to the KHL for the money as well.

 

You really won't because these teams do not have infinite money.  They don't make anywhere close to the revenues necessary to support more than a few luxury-item type of players.  The kind of NA players who go to the KHL are fringe NHLers who can make way more money in the KHL, but people's experience with the KHL has been mixed at best - players being paid in cash in the locker room, players not being paid on time, players being released from their contract with no warning, the medical staff is suspect, the travel is awful, etc.

 

How many 20+ minute D/15+ minute forwards NHLers do you think are playing in the KHL instead of the NHL right now?  How many do you think it can support?

 

In addition, the salary cap in the KHL right now is a hard cap of $36.5M per with an exception for one NHL player who is Russian.  Most of the teams in the league can't afford that $36.5M.

Edited by Triumph
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You really won't because these teams do not have infinite money.  They don't make anywhere close to the revenues necessary to support more than a few luxury-item type of players.  The kind of NA players who go to the KHL are fringe NHLers who can make way more money in the KHL, but people's experience with the KHL has been mixed at best - players being paid in cash in the locker room, players not being paid on time, players being released from their contract with no warning, the medical staff is suspect, the travel is awful, etc.

 

How many 20+ minute D/15+ minute forwards NHLers do you think are playing in the KHL instead of the NHL right now?  How many do you think it can support?

 

In addition, the salary cap in the KHL right now is a hard cap of $36.5M per with an exception for one NHL player who is Russian.  Most of the teams in the league can't afford that $36.5M.

 

I remember John Grahame went and left after they wouldn't pay him. Plus nobody in their right mind who's grown up in North America's going to move to the 3rd world or something closer than here for a little more money. Maybe if someone gets absolutely blown away, but I doubt it'd be worth it for a NA'er

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I remember John Grahame went and left after they wouldn't pay him. Plus nobody in their right mind who's grown up in North America's going to move to the 3rd world or something closer than here for a little more money. Maybe if someone gets absolutely blown away, but I doubt it'd be worth it for a NA'er

 

The KHL doesn't play in Haiti. LOL "3rd World"

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They just got Bobby Sanguinetti. Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk HD

 

Wrote a response to this that the board ate, but yeah, it's going to draw marginal NHLers who A: can make more money and B: have more stability.  A guy like Sanguinetti isn't going to get any one-way contract offers and has to make a team out of training camp.  If he doesn't make the team, is he going to make it through waivers?  So he could be playing in any of 3 places come October - the team he signed with, another NHL team, or the original team's AHL affiliate.  I bet he's making high 6 figures in Russia, and some guys have gone over there and used it to their advantage, like Andre Benoit who came back to a much better contract from Ottawa and is now on a one-way deal in Colorado.

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I've seen this point being made a few times now and I simply have to disagree. MLB competes with the Japanese baseball league, which is a fairly well financed institution in a wealthy and populous nation. And there are many solid basketball leagues around the world. In fact, much to my chagrin, b-ball is one of the most popular sports in the world. Even Israel has a league that has attracted the odd ex-NBAer, albeit usually minor.

So the situation facing hockey is not unique except insofar as how where the competition is coming from. For baseball that competition will come overwhelmingly from Japan, not the poorer nations to our south. For basketball, that competition seems to come from European leagues in general. Look at the significant number of European players to come into the game in recent years. As for hockey the competition seems to be heavily weighted toward Russia (although let's face it, Russians are not the only peeps going home...).

 

No, they're not, but alot of the rest of the players are the equivalent of AAAA baseball players.   Like our old friend Nick Bergfors.

 

The problems with the expansion are pointed out above.   Eventually they probably will have one team in every decent European hockey country, but that just makes the league ridiculously unwieldly and the opponents will mostly be some team from East Jabib.   It's not a good business model, it's pretty much a dick waving contest.   In European soccer this works because you buy into a national league when you want to dick wave.    Here, it's going to turn into a half Russian/half Euro/all clusterfvck league.

 

And the thing is, these guys all go over, but then they come back.    Pretty much everyone who has been poached will play in the NHL again.   Why?  Because of the one player cap exception.   That's where the money comes from.   Ironically enough, if SKA had signed Bobrovsky, Kovy probably gets told to go fly a kite and he mopes his way back to the Devils, and we never know.

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No, they're not, but alot of the rest of the players are the equivalent of AAAA baseball players.   Like our old friend Nick Bergfors.

 

The problems with the expansion are pointed out above.   Eventually they probably will have one team in every decent European hockey country, but that just makes the league ridiculously unwieldly and the opponents will mostly be some team from East Jabib.   It's not a good business model, it's pretty much a dick waving contest.   In European soccer this works because you buy into a national league when you want to dick wave.    Here, it's going to turn into a half Russian/half Euro/all clusterfvck league.

 

And the thing is, these guys all go over, but then they come back.    Pretty much everyone who has been poached will play in the NHL again.   Why?  Because of the one player cap exception.   That's where the money comes from.   Ironically enough, if SKA had signed Bobrovsky, Kovy probably gets told to go fly a kite and he mopes his way back to the Devils, and we never know.

 

This I don't buy.  The president of SKA is also the president of the league and Kovalchuk is probably the most popular Russian player.  They'd find a way to get this done.

 

There are a lot of Russian players who will never play in the NHL again who were pretty decent when they left (Afinogenov, Frolov, etc.).  

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