Radulov makes life tough for Nashville

Skilled forward walks away from contract to sign in Russia

Even as the Nashville Predators await a ruling on the legality of Alexander Radulov’s contract with the Russian Continental Hockey League (KHL), they know they have suffered damages regardless of the outcome.

No news is bad news for one of the Detroit Red Wings’ Central Division rivals. The prevailing opinion around the hockey world is that Radulov isn’t coming back to Nashville, even if he were to be slapped with a lifetime ban from international competition by the International Ice Hockey Federation.

My sense is that the Russians view the Radulov defection from the Predators as a small payback for all of the Russian players who have jumped to the NHL when the Russian Federation believed them to have binding contracts.

But even if the KHL surprised us all and said Radulov couldn’t play in Russia because he had a legal contract in Nashville, how could he come back and play for a team that he has betrayed?
Certainly the Predators would take him back, but I just don’t see the good folks of Nashville, a city where patriotism and honor are saluted daily in country music, welcoming back a Russian who turned his back on them and thumbed his nose at our legal system.

This isn’t a guy who played out his option and left. This is a disrespectful young man who had a legal contract and left because a Russian team was offering him more money. He wasn’t coerced into signing his deal to play in the NHL, and unlike in Russia, Radulov wasn’t forced to sign for an extended period before he was old enough to legally enter into a contract.

If he wanted to come back to the NHL, the Predators could be forced to trade him or face the possibility that he could be booed every time he touched the puck in his home arena.

And historically teams have trouble getting fair return when they are forced into a trade. Although Radulov isn’t Nashville’s best player, this is the new NHL where the difference between playoff teams and non-qualifiers often comes down to a few goals, or a key injury, or in this case, a player who simply walks away from his contract.

Radulov marches to his own beat, and there is some sentiment in Nashville that the team’s chemistry could be improved if the rambunctious Radulov is elsewhere. His flamboyant personal style is bothersome to some teammates, although it was viewed more as a nuisance than a true problem.

 

But the general sentiment is that his loss hurts significantly. In theory, he projects to be a 30-goal man and he could have ended up as the team’s leading scorer. He was also their most exciting scorer, and having a dangerous player in the lineup gives the opposition, particularly the defense, more to think about.

And that’s only half of the agony. The cost of replacing Radulov is causing the most pain for the Predators. To be a contender, NHL teams need bargain players with significant production.

For example, when the Anaheim Ducks won the Stanley Cup, three important forwards, Corey Perry, Ryan Getzlaf, and Chris Kunitz were all under the rookie cap system, meaning they cost less than $3 million total. Because the Ducks received major performances out of players who weren‘t hitting their salary cap hard, Anaheim could add other needed players. Today, Kunitz, Perry and Getzlaf players cost a total of $14.3 million.

It’s bad enough that the Predators will be missing Radulov’s 30 goals, but the real rub is that he was still under the entry level cap and was making less than $1 million. The replacement cost of a 30-goal scorer could be $3 million to $4 million. The Predators, who re-signed all of their key young players, simply don’t have that kind of money in their budget, even if they could persuade a team to trade them a higher-priced scorer.

They would have to trade close to dollar for dollar, and that probably isn't going to help them make up for Radulov's lost goals.

Their only hope is that Steve Sullivan, who missed last season with a back injury, would make a miraculous recovery and become the dangerous scorer he once was. That's not a likely scenario.

The likely scenario is that Radulov isn’t coming back and the Predators, a team that has known its share of difficulty in its short NHL life, now has to replace his goals.

The bigger question is what impact this will have on the International Ice Hockey Federation’s attempts to bring some order to the competition for players between the new Russian Super League and the NHL.

This happened right after the two sides agreed to not poach players under contract. My hunch is that this will be an isolated case and the two leagues will honor each other's contracts going forward.

But there is certainly a chance we might be looking at a war between the two leagues, and the Radulov signing was the first shot.

Top of Page

michiganhockeyonline.com | contact | staff | advertising | online advertising
©2007 Suburban Sports Communications. All rights reserved. | Advertising Policy