Seattle Kraken: World events change the team’s trade deadline and draft plans
Taking action
The International Ice Hockey Federation (IIHF) suspended Russia and Belarus from all international competitions. They even pulled the 2023 World Junior Championships from Russia. While the IIHF has no sway over NHL teams, governments do.
Foreign nationals need a work visa to hold jobs in the United States and Canada. Limiting or banning workers from Russia is among the possible sanctions that could happen. That includes hockey players. It’s possible that for political reasons, Alex Ovechkin or Evgeni Malkin might not play in the NHL next season.
IIHF bans Russia and Belarus from play until further notice.
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— TSN (@TSN_Sports) February 28, 2022
What if one country has sanctions in place and the other doesn’t? That would disqualify a player with a Russian passport from crossing the border.
Of course, Russia could ban its citizens from traveling to North America. Would anyone put it past Vladimir Putin to do that? And as added leverage, the Russian government could make life difficult for the in-country relatives of any players who head to the NHL. This is why almost all Russian players in the NHL avoid talking (or posting) about the war.
Getting back to the Russian players, they have been taking lots of verbal abuse from North American fans recently. Will they even want to come back to the NHL for 2022-23?
Since this is a huge unknown, Francis has to be wary about trading for any player that’s a Russian citizen. Then there’s the draft, which is a whole different can of worms. Think about the entire above situation, then apply it to 17-19-year-old kids. That’s a huge mess.