Of course you can have your own opinion.
The question is - do you (your league/federation) want to be nothing more than developing league for NHL? Or do you (your league/federation) want to have your own strong league (as strong as possible)?
You're implying that A) they have a choice and B) that not signing the transfer agreements would make a difference. Reality has already shown that neither of these are true.
Swedish federation wants their domestic league to be a developing league for NHL apparently. And what is a counter value for Swedish federation from NHL? NHL blocked their players from participating at Olympics, NHL clubs does not allow their players to play IIHF WC while in playoffs. Is it fair? I do not think so.
LOL. You want teams to allow players to leave in the middle of their playoffs for a yearly tournament? You can't be serious.
I don't even think the players would want to leave for that **** tournament.
Russian federation & KHL chose another path. They do not want to be a development league for NHL. They want to develop their league (KHL). Yes, players are moving to NHL, no problem. But can you imagine what would happen if KHL signed the same NHL transfer agreement as Swedes/Europe? How many Russian players would be in NHL or AHL? How it would/is be good for development of KHL (or SHL, Liiga) as a league? What about development of players in AHL? Many regressing.
Basically the same amount. In the 2 years prior to the KHL not signing the transfer agreement there were 54 Russians who played a game in the NHL. In the last two years, there were 48 Russians who played a game in the NHL.
Hockey as a sport deserves to be more developped worldwide. It is not good for the sport if there is a league with a monopol. It is good for NHL, not for sport. Hockey players have no options for their carreers, NHL salaries are peanuts compared to other major NA sport leagues, or even soccer in Europe. That is not good for players.
Well seeing how these guys are hockey players and not basketball players (or whatever), I'm not sure why they'd be upset that they're not getting paid like basketball players. If they wanted to be paid like them, they should have played that sport instead.
Besides, you're arguing they should stay at home... where they'd earn a fraction of what they'd earn in the NHL. You really need to get your arguments straight.
There must be a competition between leagues, which means more good paid jobs for players. This competition will never be here if your domestic league/federation´s only goal is to be a NHL feeder league.
Wrong again. That competition will never be there if those leagues can't afford to compete with the NHL financially. That is what it will take for change to happen. However that will never happen. Not because of a lack of talent or whatever other made up slight you want to blame on the NHL, but because the demand and the infrastructure just isn't there to support the prices those teams would have to charge to level the financial playing field.
You want Russians to stay in the KHL? They need to be able to offer the same conditions and the same pay the NHL does. The same goes for the other European leagues. Except that will never happen. But that's not the NHL's fault, but the economics of those leagues and the reality of their situations.
The NHL has done great job to prevent other (Europeans) leagues to rival them. Transfer rules are one of tools how to achieve it. Can not speak for Swedish or Finnish leagues, but Soviet & Czech-slovak leagues had high quality back in time. But then all stars moved to NHL. Yes, Iron Curtain thing happened, so players were free to move. That is not a problem, the problem is behaviour of NHL at the time (and still). As you can see, some NHL teams negotiated a transfer fee with Dynamo Moscow to release their players to NHL. No problem. But why not negotiate with all European clubs? Yeah, because NHL did not want, was too strong, did not want to pay. IIHF failed here, that must be said. And that is a start of the problem we have now. If there was no problem to negotiate a transfer fee with Dynamo Msc over 25 years ago, why it is a problem now? Rhetorical question. Think about it for a few days.
Yes... because that is where the money is. This is basic economics. Why perform your job in country A for $100,000 a year when you can do the same job with better conditions for $1,000,000 a year?
The basic problem Vorky is that you're still failing to grasp the reality of the situation. You want to paint the NHL as the bad guy here and blaming them for everything, and that's just plain wrong. Are they giving the European clubs a good deal with regards to acquiring players? No, not really. And that's fine if you want to blame them for not paying a fair price. But you have to recognize that the NHL doesn't need to pay a fair price, because even you know the players will come to the NHL all on their own. You're also failing to recognize that none of the European leagues (including the KHL) can match the working conditions or financial compensation that the NHL does. Until this happens, the players will leave - and that's not the NHL's fault, but the players fault for wanting to be compensated at rates the European clubs can't match. Is it the players fault that the SEL and the KHL cannot and never will be able to afford an average salary that matches the NHL (almost 4m USD today) under the same working conditions? If you want to start assigning blame, maybe look at the players who are leaving, like Radulov and Panarin and others.