Russian League gets salary caps

[Tomas]

Starting next season, Russian Hockey league will institute several important changes that will likely affect its ability to compete with the NHL.

1) The salary cap will be either $10 mil (what poor teams want) or $12.5 mil. (what the minority of rich teams want). Farm team salaries will count toward the cap, coaches' salaries won't. The team can have one designated player whose salary does not count toward salary cap.

2) The teams also have salary "floors" - in the neighborhood of $6 mil.

3) Minimal transfer fee for trades between teams will be $100,000; maximum will be $500,000. Players older than 28 years move for free.

4) Only max of 3 foreigners per team, and, starting 2009-10, no foreign goalies allowed! (kind of ironic, given that all 4 semifinalists this year used North American goalies - Fred Braithwaite (Kazan), Norm Maracle (Omsk), Travis Scott (Magnitogorsk), Stephen Valiquette (Yaroslavl), and there are at least 10 other foreign goalies in that league).


Incidentally, last year's league champion Dynamo Moscow is flat out broke. The players have not received salaries since November (that includes even their coach and current Russian headcoach Krikunov). The players are expected to file a civil lawsuit any day now.

[jmh470]

It seems strange that they would limit foreign players.

[Pitts]

It seems strange that they would limit foreign players.

I would think they are doing this because, if they can pay salaries fairly comensurate with the NHL, what's to stop a lot of major NHL players from heading there? If that kind of back and forth employment happend, it would, basically, negate any transfer agreement. Why should NHL teams shell out good money for a Russian player when a North American player can sign there and the NHL gets nothing? With the limitation in place, it keeps Russian players as a commodity for the North American market and keeps jobs open for Russian players over there.