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well, the government has stated they want to start a league that openly competes against the NHL as a rival. They have been wanting to keep as many of there good players as possible, and have used many means to that end, including enforcing manditory military duty, not signing the IIHF, and now of course, outbidding NHL teams for those players. These players, over the past few years, have only been released to the NHL after substantial monetary payouts to those teams holding their Russian rights. I really have no idea if, or how much, the Russian mafia has to figure into this, as I don't really know anything about their position in/with the Soviet government, except the BS they put into movies and video games.
I see now that another Russian born player, Alexander Semin, is violating his current NHL contract with the Capitols by remaining in Russia for unknown reasons, even though he was supposed to join Washington for training camp. He has even played a game for his Russian team in the Superliga. Get used to this sight over the next few seasons.
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