With the NHL lockout in the middle of its first week, many players are already looking for ways to keep on playing whether it’s getting sent down to go play in the AHL or players going over to Russia or Switzerland to go play in their professional leagues. Many of the young NHL players with entry level contracts are still able to be sent down to the AHL to play with them such as Jeff Skinner, Ryan Nugent-Hopkins, Jordan Eberle. These players are still able to be sent down to play with their respective affiliated teams.
Other players such as Ilya Kovalchuk, Evgeni Malkin, and Sergei Gonchar are going over to Russia to go play in the KHL with a team that they signed with. Many of the KHL teams are only able to sign only a few NHL players. So with the NHL still on lockout, we’ll see what the players end up doing with either going to somewhere else to play or do the players just keep on training until the season is back on schedule.
With all of these recent moves, this was the last thing hockey fans wanted to see. It’s understandable that teams want to keep their players in shape by playing in other leagues since they most likely won’t be playing in the NHL anytime soon, but seeing these moves happen make it seem like a deal is nowhere even close to happening.
All of a sudden, this seems like a flashback to 2004 when the entire regular season was canceled–which isn’t a good sign.
