Hot on the heels of all this Malkin/Zherdev talk, CBS SportsLine's Wes Goldstein has a good list of past defections by European hockey stars and how they went about escaping their various homelands.
by James Mirtle @ 9:30 PM
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A sportswriter at The Globe and Mail, James covers the NHL and the game of hockey. He is a member of the Professional Hockey Writers' Association, a senior editor with McKeen's Hockey and was the NHL network manager at SB Nation from 2008 to 2010. A graduate of Thompson Rivers and Ryerson universities, James grew up in Kamloops, B.C. — one of Canada's great hockey cities — and was a season ticket holder in the Blazers' glory years.
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7 Comments:
The article is a nice one, but far from complete. Here's a more complete list, compiled by myself and Patrick Houda:
Vaclav Nedomansky 1974
Richard Farda 1974 (WHA 1974-1977, never played in NHL)
Jiri Crha 1979
Vitezslav Duris 1980
Peter Stastny 1980
Anton Stastny 1980
Marian Stastny 1981
Miroslav Frycer 1981
Jan Ludvig 1981
Peter Ihnacak 1982
Petr Klima 1984
Petr Svoboda 1984
Miroslav Ihnacak 1985
Frantisek Musil 1986
Petr Prajsler 1987
Ladislav Tresl 1987 (Never Played In NHL)
Alexander Mogilny 1989
Petr Nedved 1989
Lesser Knowns:
Jiri Sevcik (never played in NHL)
Vojtech Kucera (never played in NHL)
Jaroslav "Jarda" Krupicka 1969 (first played in Western Europe, then WHA, never played in NHL)
Peter Almasy - attended a few NHL
camps. Played for Baltimore and St.Catharines (AHL) in the early 80's. Best known as long time member of French National Team.
Karel Svoboda - Petr's older brother, only played with farm team before heading to western Europe.
Martin Maglay 1980 - attended Leafs camp with Crha, but was released.
There are many Czechs/Slovaks on the list, but some older players were given permission to play including
Old stars as Milan Novy, Miroslav Dvorak, Jiri Bubla, Ivan Hlinka, Frantisek Cernik and Milan Chalupa.
Vladimir Martinec and Bohumil Ebermann were also available
(but they went to Germany and France respectively).
Joe Pelletier
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http://www.1972summitseries.com
http://www.legendsofhockey.blogspot.com
the bure brothers also defected.
Neither Pavel nor Valeri defected. They had their playing rights transfered via proper channels.
Sergei Fedorov is an interesting case too. He did defect, but then settled the matter through proper channels. Technically he never defected.
Joe Pelletier
------------------
http://www.1972summitseries.com
http://www.legendsofhockey.blogspot.com
it depends how you define "defect." yes, fedorov and pavel bure negotiated transfer agreements in order to play in the nhl, but they both also left the soviet union illegally. bure left the soviet union for los angeles with his brother and father, after he was cut from the soviet canada cup team in 1991 (ironically, for fear that he would defect while in north america). he then had to stay in los angeles, as malkin is doing right now, while the canucks hammered out an agreement with the red army team.
You are correct - the term defection is up in the air. Fedorov and Bure left Russia without permission, but part of the cash settlement avoided defection status for Bure and Fedorov, unlike Mogilny when he defected a couple of years earlier.
It's always surprised me how none of the great Russians of the 70s or particularly the 80s defected.
Joe Pelletier
------------------
http://www.1972summitseries.com
http://www.legendsofhockey.blogspot.com
Fun fact: Nedomansky was involved in the first (and, I think, only) interleague trade between the WHA and NHL, going from Birmingham to Detroit in 1977.
Too bad he was already 30 by the time he made it over. Imagine if he'd come over during the original expansion in '67, at the age of only 23. Despite the anti-Euro sentiment of the NHL at the time, a team like Oakland might have been desparate enough to try it.
I knew Karel Svoboda when he played in France. He may not have been the player his brother was, but he was a great great guy.
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