And also possibly provide a good platform for further acquisitions from Russia of these younger players. I don't think that the value of that should be underrated. Like its been a ride for Russian hockey since they cancelled the Russian Super League and created the KHL. The MHL. The VHL. Their farm system. Teams all over Europe. But almost a decade has passed right. And the new reality has kind of set in now. The teams doing the right things -- building teams, developing kids, developing their players, treating the players right, keeping a professional atmosphere, being as serious as possible, working out as good as possible during the off-season -- its these teams that have had the results. The other teams, under different managements, have failed. For a while you heard so many stories, from players literary being locked up at a old army camps before game (very common for a while, locked doors with guards, to prevent drinking the day before a game), buss loads of entertainment girls arriving at hotels/camps after more or less every win as opposed to practice if you lost, forign imports being dumped at buss stops in the middle of nowhere, crap like this.
What is the result of this? I think the KHL now is an alternative development track parallel to the NHL. Like its easy to lose track of when only following a league -- but the NHL is FULL of players with all kind of different pedigrees. Full of them. Late round picks, being stars. Players that sucked when they were 22 being stars when they are 25. Or why not 35. Undrafted players being stars. But up until now, you could get some late bloomers from outside the NHL, mainly from Europe, but if a kid did not get into the NHL, it was very rare that anyone older than say 25 still got into the league. They just weren't given a proper environment to develop in. Now you have a parallel track in the KHL that is starting to become pretty good. Looking at the NHL's top 30 in scoring, like 2/3s weren't huge names and big stars when they were 19-20. They got there between 22-28 y/o. A Cam Atkinsson is a helluva player right now, he wasn't when he was 19. Looking at the top 30 in the NHL in ice time among Ds, how many were huge names when they were 18-19? 25%? How many more or less came from "nowhere" (outside top 15 in a draft)? 75%? Panarin is a helluva player now, he wasn't when he was 19 either. He got there in the KHL. Panarin developed a ton in the KHL when being 21, 22 and 23 y/o, and went to the NHL when he was 24 y/o.
With a 7 round draft -- and the KHL factor -- many good young Russian players will not get drafted. How many of these kids will develop a lot between 18-25 and become perfectly solid players by NHL standards in their early 20s -- per year? It won't be one every other year. It might not be 5 per year either, but somewhere in between on that range maybe. Of course all teams will be hunting for guys like Panarin and Zaitsev, but (i) if they increase in number, (ii) and we get a platform with Buch and Bereglazov in NY, the lure of NY, good reputaiton, good team -- I don't see why we couldn't get a very solid top 9 forward/top 6 D from Russia like every other year. And that would be HUGE. Like an entire amature draft system of an organization give you about one solid player per year on avg. Imagine if we could get 50% of that from another source, its in principle worth just as much as having -- 50% -- more draft picks. Add a college UFA becoming a NHLer on top of this like every third year or whatever, it would just give us a tremendous advantage.