And so the Ivan Fedotov saga has a new twist. To recap: the 26-year-old goaltender, Finnish-born but of Russian nationality, was largely an after-thought when the Philadelphia Flyers drafted him in the 7th round of the 2015 NHL draft. However, he put himself on the radar in a big way with his 2021-22 campaign, which saw him collect a silver medal after posting a .943 sv% over six games at the Beijing Olympics. A couple of months later, Fedotov won the KHL’s Gagarin Cup as the starter for CSKA Moscow — he was also named the KHL’s Best Goalie that season. The result was a one-year ELC signed with the Flyers in May of 22, and Fedotov seemed set to cross the pond and give the NHL a shot, following in the footsteps of Ilya Sorokin, Igor Shestyorkin, and other highly-rated Russian goalies of recent years.
But then the situation took a turn for the odd: Fedotov was arrested in Russia in July of 2022, accused of illegally evading his year of compulsory military service. Fedotov was packed off to Severomorsk, the headquarters of the Russian navy’s Northern Fleet, instead of heading to South Broad Street in Philadelphia. The Flyers’ response to this development was to postpone the beginning of his ELC to the upcoming season, 2023-24. Fedotov has now finished his military service, and is free to return to his professional hockey career. But it seems that once again the Flyers may be left at the altar, as CSKA announced a couple of days ago that Fedotov has put pen to paper on a two-year deal with the Moscow club.
A little bit of historical background is in order here. The KHL and NHL do not have a transfer agreement like the ones that exist between the North American league and a number of other European circuits. Instead, in 2008, the NHL and KHL signed a “Memorandum of Understanding” (hereafter referred to as the MoU), basically agreeing to respect each other’s contracts. So, neither league would sign a player under contract in the other league. The MoU has been extended a number of times since then. However, in March of 2022, in the wake of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, the NHL announced that the agreement had been suspended, and that NHL teams were to have no contact with their Russian colleagues. In the wake of that announcement… absolutely nothing seemed to have changed. Both sides went on respecting each other’s contracts, and on the same day that the Fedotov situation blew up, the Vegas Golden Knights were busy loaning prospect forward Ivan Morozov to Spartak Moscow for the coming season; clearly, collegial contact has continued as well.
What is interesting in the Fedotov case is that neither the KHL nor the NHL, in talking about this situation, has made any reference to the purported suspension of the MoU. In fact, the KHL reportedly reached out a couple of days ago to the NHL to clarify Fedotov’s status with the Flyers, prior to his signing with CSKA. And the Russian league’s statement on the matter this weekend says that based on the information received from the NHL in response to that query, Fedotov does not have a valid contract “in the sense that was envisaged in the Memorandum of Understanding.” CSKA President Igor Yesmantovich clarified this position a little bit this weekend; the issue is the Flyers’ postponement of Fedotov’s contract from 2022-23 to this coming season, a move that CSKA does not see as valid. The NHL, of course, disputes that, saying that Fedotov is under contract with the Flyers and that the KHL’s official registration of his deal with CSKA violates his commitment to the NHL club. The now-defunct MoU contained protocols for arbitrating such disputes, but that, of course, is now moot.
So of course, the big question is: what happens next? Well, there are doubtless some twists and turns yet to come, but for now Ivan Fedotov is a CSKA Moscow goalie for 2023-24. But of more consequence is the apparent death of the spirit of the MoU, and what effect that will have on the NHL and the KHL remains to be seen. On the one hand, today’s developments are likely to make NHL teams even more leery than they already are about drafting and signing Russian players, which will suit the KHL just fine. And in a way, the North American league has only itself to blame; the NHL can hardly protest too much about the KHL refusing to abide by an agreement that the NHL itself did away with, and unilaterally at that.
But on the other hand, the MoU protected the KHL, too, so there is a definite risk for the Russian league in stepping away from it. The NHL certainly has both the clout and the cash required to make attractive offers to Russian players, should the North Americans wish to retaliate for the Fedotov situation by pursuing under-contract KHLers. And while the KHL does not seem too worried about that possibility right now, the Russian Hockey Federation was up-front about its concerns in a statement today on the Fedotov situation:
The Russian Ice Hockey Federation (RIHF) assesses the situation as an ambiguous one which requires a detailed analysis and a legal resolution. In order for this to happen, it is necessary to obtain official information from the NHL with regard to Fedotov’s contract status. It will only be possible to make a decision concerning the player’s participation in the KHL following consultations with the International Ice Hockey Federation (IIHF).
As a member of the IIHF, the RIHF will insist on the KHL’s strict adherence to the IIHF’s international transfer rules and regulations. Any violation could lead to negative consequences for Russian ice hockey.
The IIHF, for its part, has so far declined to comment.
Of note here: the very same Philadelphia Flyers who signed Ivan Fedotov drafted young hot-shot forward Matvei Michkov just a couple of weeks ago, and its not hard to imagine them seeking to take some revenge on the KHL by bringing Michkov over before he becomes a free agent in 2026. The irony of that, of course, is that in a very narrow on-ice sense such a move would actually benefit CSKA Moscow; Michkov plays for their West Conference arch-rivals, SKA St. Petersburg. So it is all very convoluted at the moment, and now we wait to see what happens next. However, the best solution may well be for the NHL (and the Flyers) and the KHL (and CSKA) to resume official contact and negotiate some sort of acceptable and legal solution to this problem in the framework, or at least in the spirit, of the MoU.
