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The NHL and the International Ice Hockey Federation's European teams are going to take another shot at finding a player transfer agreement that works for all sides.
Representatives from the NHL, the NHL Players' Association, the IIHF and its affiliated teams will meet Thursday in Zurich to discuss what can be done, if anything, to replace the previous player transfer agreement that expired last month.
The old deal outlined when and how many players could jump to the NHL each season, how they could return to their IIHF teams and how much money would be paid for each player. That arrangement was lost when Russia and the Czech Republic felt they deserved more than $200,000 (all currency U.S.) for their top players.
NHL deputy commissioner Bill Daly will attend the meeting but acknowledged the league had nothing new to offer. "As I understand it, it will be more a meeting to discuss the current situation and how we move forward," Daly said in an e-mail. "I will be meeting with the Players' Association before we meet with the IIHF, but at this point I don't expect we'll be bringing anything new to the table."
The NHL and the European teams had agreed not to sign each other's players if an existing contract is in place. A release fee cannot be negotiated either since it would violate the NHL's collective agreement with its players.
IIHF president Rene Fasel has stated he tried to convince the member teams that getting "$200,000 is more than zero dollars … But this is the choice they have made."
Fasel explained the European teams are asking for more money since the U.S. dollar has "lost 32 per cent of its value since 2002." The European teams have also been angered by the NHL taking their best players and then assigning them to the minor leagues for development.
