I've been wondering about this too. I guess it all comes down to money. How much is the team that drafts him willing to pay to buy him out of military duty. There are so many different possible outcomes. Kovalchuk didn't serev in the military. But after the Zherdev thing, they might want to do that to Ovechkin to get a bigger fee, especially if he is drafted by Columbus. Then you could ask the question "would they put the Russian Prize in the military?". I don't know. Everybody likes him over in Russia and they wouldn't look very good to the public if they put in in the military just for money, unless they spread a whole bunch of propaganda around about him so they will get public support. One the other hand they might put him in any way prize or not because they want a big fee or to stick it to Columbus if he gets drafted by them. Also with the Zherdev thing they might want to put all their players in the military who are of age so there will be no more mistakes in the the future. If you keep track of the Ovechkin news from Russian papers and such, you will know that Ovechkin is being very careful what he says about the Zherdev thing. He says when they call eachother, which they do very often, they don't talk about the problems with Columbus and the Russians, only about personal matters. That way no one will ask him any questions. I don't know. It's all very confusing. There are many different thing the Russians could try to pull, and I've been trying to figure it out for months since the Zherdev situation brought the matter to my attention and I still don't have an answer. Remember that after the end of this season the deal between the IIHF-NHL-NHLPA expires, so with no rules, the Russians could ask just about as much as they want for a transfer fee and to buy him out of military duty. With no rules, there are no rules. I'd predict that if Columbus gets him they'd have a tad more trouble getting him out of there than another team since bad feelings still remain about Zherdev. I read somewhere that there are three prefered ways for young players in Russia to get out of military duty: One is to join a higher profile team with lots of money and connections--Such as Ovechkin's team Dynamo Moscow, another is to sit it out in the lower leagues--Kovalchuk, and I can't remeber what the third one was but i think it involved buying your way out in some form or another.
I don't think that really answers your question but the truth is nobody knows yet what is going to happen. But at least now you know some of the possible outcomes. There are many.
