NHL, new Russian league reach peace deal on contracts

ZURICH, Switzerland -- The NHL reached a peace pact with a new Russian hockey league Thursday, ending the threat of players being lured by big money offers to break their contracts.

The temporary agreement to respect player contracts across all borders followed offers made last month by teams in Russia's Continental Hockey League -- which begins play in September -- to entice Evgeni Malkin out of the final year of his deal with the Pittsburgh Penguins.

It was reached at a meeting of the NHL, the NHL Players' Association and international hockey leagues in Zurich, the home of the International Ice Hockey Federation.

"Everyone in the room agreed that for the foreseeable future everyone will respect everybody's contracts," NHL deputy commissioner Bill Daly said.

Players' union director Paul Kelly said all parties recognized the need for "clear respect between leagues."

The deal was brokered with Russian league founder Alexander Medvedev, who had given his teams a green light to approach players like Malkin.

Medvedev was also nominated to a working group which will meet in New York in September. It will look in detail at drawing up an international transfer agreement and plans to globalize the game, including holding a World Cup in 2012.

"There is no sense to make a war," IIHF president Rene Fasel said. "Everyone agrees we could make a war very easily, but with no winner. The loser will be the game.

"Even if we don't have a transfer agreement today we have a very good understanding of each other."

The Continental league, known as the KHL in Russia, will have 24 teams -- including one each in neighboring Belarus and Kazakhstan -- which can have five overseas players on a 25-man roster.

Daly said the NHL and KHL established a good mutual understanding since meeting at the IIHF world championships in Canada in May.

"We don't view them as a threat," he said. "We still believe the best hockey players in the world will continue to want to play in the NHL.

"But having said that they want to establish a new order and a new league that may one day be broader than Russia," Daly added. "It is an ambitious business plan and it looks like they have capable leadership."