A Look At The KHL: The Yablonski Rule

Something happened recently that has saddened a select part of the hockey world:

Pauline Gretzky shut down her twitter account. (Good news...SHE'S BACK!!!)

Oh, and the KHL is is expected to introduce a new rule to curb goons from Nother America to play in their league. This rule is named after Jeremy Yablonski, he of 1 game with the Blues back in 2003-04, but most may know him as a former Senators farmhand.

So time for me to shake off the rust and remember how to do this.

Overview

Right now, they have put in a rule stating that each team may dress only one "tough guy" (must be a Russian translation for "goon"). Well there goes have of Vityaz Chekhov's roster. Wait wait, I got more:

• Vityaz Chekhov translated to English is "Hanson Brothers"
• Vityaz Chekhov - Making the Bruins look soft

If you didn't catch it, Vityaz Chekhov is the team gooning up the KHL. If you look at their roster, you can see why. Here are some examples of them...uh..."playing":

(against Avangard Omsk in 2010)

(last month vs. Dinamo Riga)

(even the coach gets involved)

(and this is why Yablonkski is sitting home eatting chips now)

The KHL is also trying to adopt a rule that would see only North American born players with at least 80-120 NHL games (no hard number yet) be allowed to play in the KHL. While this does help their efforts in cutting down on goons, it also alienates the guys who are minor league superstars that either just couldn't make the NHL or never got a proper shot.

North Americans in the KHL

Through extensive (re: 5 minutes) of research, I've counted 25 North American born players* that are currently in the KHL. Here is a list of the players that would be eligible to stay if the rule was set at 80 games:

• Jamie Lundmark (Dinamo Riga)
• Nick Tarnasky (Vityaz Chekhov)
• Deron Quint (Traktor Chelyabinsk)
• Dustin Boyd (Barys Astana)
• Brandon Bochenski (Barys Astana)
• Josh Gratton (Barys Astana)
• Kevin Dallman (Barys Astana)
• Nigel Dawes (Barys Astana)
• Andrew Hutchinson (Barys Astana)
• Chris Simon (Metallurg Novokuznetsk)
• Brent Sopel (Metallurg Novokuznetsk)
• Randy Robitaille (Metallurg Novokuznetsk)

That's only 12 players (48%) that would be allowed to stay. Of note, half of them play on the lone Kazakhstan team (Barys Astana).

*Goalies not included

The KHL Draft

Another side effect of the proposed rule is the inablity for KHL teams to draft North American players. Of course, 2 things already affect this:

1. Any KHL team (that isn't Vityaz Chekhov anyway) won't waste a pick on a noted junior goon (Now that I think about it, Dynamo Moscow did draft Zach Kassian in 2009. Soooo, there goes that point)
2. Anyone over this side of the world would blow off the chance to play in the NHL in favour of the KHL

This rule would just eliminates any team wanting to pick a North American player in the CHL. Although, those picks were just used to control the players KHL rights anyway. Ak Bars Kazan is just waiting for Taylor Hall's contract to expire.