NHL Suspends Dealings With KHL As Russia’s Ukraine Invasion Impacts Hockey World

Nearly two weeks after Russia first invaded Ukraine on Feb. 24, the fallout from this military action is being felt throughout the hockey world.

On Monday, the NHL suspended operation of its Memorandum of Understanding with Russia’s top professional circuit, the Kontinental Hockey League. According to a report from Frank Seravalli of Daily Faceoff, a memo to NHL general managers instructed teams to “immediately cease all dealings [direct or indirect] with the KHL and KHL Clubs [and all representatives of both], as well as with player agents who are based in and continue to do business in Russia.”

The KHL started the season as a 24-team league spread across six countries — 19 teams in Russia and one each in Belarus, Kazakhstan, Finland, Latvia and China. Due to the global pandemic, the Chinese team, Kunlun Red Star, has been playing out of a Moscow suburb for the last two years.

The KHL’s roster is made up mostly of Russian players, but also includes nationals for the non-Russian teams and players from other European nations, the United States and Canada.

In pre-pandemic times, the 62-game KHL regular season ran from the beginning of September through the end of February, with playoffs in March and April. This year, plans to finish the regular season following the Winter Olympic break were scrapped in mid-February, with 45 to 50 games in the books. The Gagarin Cup playoffs were moved up to begin on March 1 and are now underway.

Following the Ukraine invasion, two clubs announced that they were withdrawing from the league. Finland-based Jokerit was in a playoff position; Latvia-based Dinamo Riga was not.

Some non-Russian players have also chosen to leave their teams, at the risk of forfeiting their salaries. That list includes the former NHL forwards Markus Granlund, a top-2o KHL scorer this year who just won an Olympic gold medal with Finland, and Nick Shore, a 2022 U.S. Olympian.

Suspending business with the KHL will make life more difficult for NHL general managers who were looking to sign free agents out of Russia, or bring over their own prospects. As one example, Ivan Fedotov turned in a strong performance for Russia at the Olympics, and is said to be in the last year of his KHL contract with CSKA Moscow. Now 25, Fedotov was drafted by the Philadelphia Flyers in the seventh round in 2015, and it’s believed that the organization now has interest in signing him and bringing him to North America.

In Monday’s NHL memo, deputy commissioner Bill Daly indicated that the league intends to honor a players’ contract status in the KHL, as it has done in the past. But verifying that information will now be more difficult.

Many KHL players with interest in playing in North America retain an additional agent to handle their affairs outside of Russia. NHL teams are permitted to deal with NHL-certified player agents who represent KHL or Russian players.

The sanctions imposed on Russia in the wake of the invasion could also impact the prospects who were hoping to be drafted in Montreal this July. The midterm 2022 draft prospect rankings from NHL Central Scouting include three Russian players among the top 10 European skaters, and two netminders among the top 10 European goaltenders.

If a player is already part of their organization, he or his North American representative can communicate freely with his NHL team, whether or not he is currently playing in a North American league.

It’s unclear at this point whether players’ work visas or travel could become impacted, and to what degree, if the conflict in Ukraine continues.

Last week, the NHL issued a statement condemning Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and urging for a peaceful resolution as quickly as possible. It also announced that the league was suspending its relationships with its business partners in Russia and pausing its Russian-language social and digital media sites.

On Feb. 28, the International Ice Hockey Federation suspended Russia and Belarus from all levels of competition until further notice, and stripped Russia of its hosting duties for the 2023 World Junior Championship. That tournament was to have been held in two Siberian cities, Novosibirsk and Omsk, with a new 10,000-seat arena being constructed in Novosibirsk for the occasion.

Upcoming IIHF events that will go ahead without Russian and/or Belarusian teams include the men’s World U18 Championship in Germany (April 21-May 1), the men’s World Championship in Finland (May 13-29), the Women’s U18 World Championship (USA, date TBD this summer), the rescheduled 2022 men’s World Junior Championship (Edmonton, date TBD this summer) and the 2022 Women’s World Championship (Denmark, Aug. 26 – Sept. 4).

No details have been provided yet about which teams will be promoted to fill the now-empty tournament spots, or how seeding, promotion and relegation will be affected.