Pavel Buchnevich
Drury and Laviolette Must Go
Last time I agreed with you, now I can not agree with bold part.
Of course, he was forced by the NYR to sign as soon as possible. They even wanted to sign him during KHL playoffs. Knowing this, NYR GM contacted him in any form while Kravtsov had valid KHL contract. Such behaviour by GM is forbidden.
According to IIHF rules and KHL-NHL MoU, a club can not be in touch with a player who has a valid contract with another team in another league. If such a team is interested in a player, that club needs to contact his team, not the player directly!
Talking about the KHL players, the NHL teams can contact them in the period from May to August (if a player is not signed for another season). But they are doing it during the season as well! They are still coming to Moscow to meet with Kaprizov etc.
I have no problem if a player wishes to sign in the NHL. But there need to be rules, first - contact the KHL club if the club wants to release a player, second your NHL team needs to agree to a transfer fee with KHL club and, finally, then your NHL club can contact directly the player and sign a deal.
I'm not going to say that I know the particulars of the situation. I don't know for sure whether Kravtsov or the team initiated his signing. You mention that the GM tampered with his KHL contract, but he was saying while he had a KHL contract that he wanted to play in the NHL the following season. Thats unusual to hear. Did the team tell him that they wanted him to do that and he complied or did he tell the team he wanted to play for the team as soon as possible and thy went along? We don't know. The one who initiated that deserves blame.