StateOfHockey101
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- May 19, 2015
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Speculation: Would Minnesota trade Kirill Kaprizov?
- Thread starter Stealth JD
- Start date
66-30-33
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- Dec 10, 2012
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Russo is purely speculating in that regard. He has no idea about “the Russian mafia owning teams and threatening players families if they leave.”
- Dec 10, 2012
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Unfortunately I don’t think Minnesota has the assets or cap space to acquire Malkin.
Bruce Granville
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- Oct 11, 2014
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I don‘t think Pens trade Malkin to Minnesota for Parise, but sure, it might happen.
Fantomas
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- Aug 7, 2012
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Russian businessmen who own teams = mafia. American businessmen who own teams = job creators and good community folks.
I'm saying that most of what he's had to say on the matter is conjecture and that, by and large, he's not good at that sort of thing. He'd probably tell you the same thing if you asked him outright.
It's pretty clear that when it comes to Kaprizov in particular he doesn't know any more than we do, which is what's relayed through Milstein.
Kirill Kaprizov (@KaprizovKirill) on Twitter would you put that in your Twitter handle if you had no intention of playing for that team. Maybe his agent told him to do it but who knows,
gwh
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- Mar 4, 2013
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More like friends of Putin who got rich privatizing soviet resource companies in the 90s and infrastructure corruption in 2000s. I don't think you live in a sack, so what is the point you are making here?
gwh
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- Mar 4, 2013
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Only double standard is Deripaska, who doesn't have a team yet. Definitely the most interesting and intelligent oligangster.
- Dec 10, 2012
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Russo is generally a pretty good and typically unbiased reporter, but as Bazeek said, when he tries to be an analyst he can make some pretty bad reaches and sometimes say things he’s probably better off not saying. Presumably he said this thing about Kaprizov on the podcast, which is usually less “official” than his Twitter or his articles.
I love the mobster stuff mentioned in with the general consensus he'll be coming over in two years, it makes it sound like the Russian hockey mafia has their own Rumspringa where they have to stop threatening and coercing players for some brief window and let them try out other leagues.
- Dec 10, 2012
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“Alright we’ll give him 5 years to go play in the NHL but if he doesn’t pay us 25% of his contract every year him and his family will be swimming with da fishies”
Dickie Dunn
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Until there’s evidence of the contrary, yeah I’m going to believe that there aren’t a bunch of Russian mafia members walking into these players houses telling them bad things will happen if they choose to go play a game somewhere else for a while. It’s not like they’re selling Russia’s national secrets to terrorists.
I think a lot of stuff goes on behind the scenes in both leagues. If someone has evidence of the Russian mafia coercing an actual player to stay and play in the KHL I'd be all ears, but I haven't seen any yet. All I've heard is speculation that goes something like this:
1.) Russia has organized crime
2.) Russia's organized crime has historical relationships with some of its more prominent business and political leaders
3.) Many KHL owners are also powerful business and/or political figures
4.) Sometimes Russian players choose to play in Russia instead of the NHL
5.) 1 and 2 somehow play into 4, because of 3
(Note that you can change "Russia" to "US" and "KHL" to "NHL" and it'll be just as true)
Point 5 seems baseless and unnecessary. In Kaprizov's case in particular he was presented with two competing options:
1.) Make the jump to NA to play for a team that was (in good faith) attempting to operate primarily through his NA agent. Because that agent doesn't seem to have been reliable and because the team had no secondary lines of communication, he didn't end up hearing much from Minnesota.
2.) Stay in Russia for another 2 years, make a bunch of money playing for one of the best teams in the league, and play in the Olympics. And this camp is giving him the full court press in terms of courtship.
Nothing about the situation requires coercion or the mob to explain it.
Fantomas
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- Aug 7, 2012
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How about we get back to hockey? There are plenty of political forums out there with enough vitriol to bathe in. I come here to get away from the real world.
Yeah it's clear from his Instagram and Twitter that he's held under great duress by the Russian mafia, better run off to Minnesota where literal Fargo happened, I'm sure he'll be safe there
