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Old 11-29-2016, 09:54 AM   #2
JeffR
FHM Producer
 
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Join Date: Apr 2002
Location: Kelowna, BC
Posts: 16,605
You have to wait until their KHL contracts expire; unlike most of the other European leagues, there's no transfer agreement between the KHL and NHL, just a memorandum of understanding to honour each other's contracts. So an NHL team can't simply sign whichever KHL player it wants. There may be some backdoor ways around that, like having the player buy out his own KHL contract, but that presents some problems for the game - for one, the NHL team would have to give the buyout-earmarked money to the player in the forum of a bonus. We don't model guaranteed bonus money separately from regular salary in the game right now, but if we added that option for buyouts, we'd need to start doing that so the proper restrictions on bonuses could be enforced. That's particularly relevant for younger players; the Leafs got into trouble with the league that way a few years ago because they paid Jonas Frogren a bonus that was too large for an ELC, which he used to buy out his contract in Sweden.

MHL players should be signable directly, assuming they've been drafted and aren't already contracted to a KHL team.
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