Penguins Evgeni Malkin

Penguins new Russian rookie, Evgeni Malkin starts off his NHL career with the Penguins with more on his mind then just playing hockey. Before Malkin was able to start this season he currently had a contract with a Russian Super League. When the Penguins sign Malkin The Russian league sued The Penguins for breech of contract saying that Malkin was to finish the season in Russia before he could play in the NHL. His hometown team's Director planed to get compensation for loosing Malkin to the Pens when he left his team. The team said that they put to many resources into Malkin and that he was their star that they were building their whole team around. This happened once before with Washington Captials rookie 2004 draft pick, Alexander Ovechkin when he left his team for the NHL and was able to get out of his contract. Just like in Ovechkin's case The Russian Super League was unable to hold onto their star players. As in a few other cases like Malkin's and Ovechkin's other hockey league's in other countries agreed to a fee of 200'000 dollars to the league if one of there players left for the NHL. This is what got Malkin out of his contract. The Russian league said that a player of Malkins skill would make millions more and is worth more to the league then just 200,000. Again, The Super League lost the case because regardless of their talent the fee was 200,000 and that there is no way of proving a players worth.