GKJ
Global Moderator
- Feb 27, 2002
- 187,593
- 39,568
I liked Gus, especially when he had chemistry with Schenn. But the brutal fact is he's not an NHL caliber player. That's why he's not in the NHL.
That's not a valid criteria in 2015. Under your criteria, Michael Raffl wasn't good enough to be in the top league in Sweden, much less the NHL, as recent as three years ago, and he basically jumped straight to the NHL.
The very best KHL players aren't appreciably better or worse than some NHL players. Just because you're not in the NHL doesn't mean you don't belong there. The Flyers just gave a 32-year old defenseman $3M and he's never played a game on this continent (other than the Olympics), and it's very very very unlikely that he is an NHL caliber player at age 32 when he wasn't at age 30. Likewise Bellemare at a slightly younger age. And guys like Carl Soderberg and Jori Lehtera who are important players on their teams.
Almost every team now are trying to sign players from the KHL. Vladimir Sobotka is another player who should be in the NHL but is in the KHL for similar reasons why Gus left: more ice time and more money.