Several GM’s irked at Radulov’s clearance to bypass waivers

Several NHL general managers clearly were not all that pleased.

But unlike many of the rule changes being deliberated this week at their semi-annual meetings, the return of Alexander Radulov was not up for debate.

If the Russian winger wants to return to the Nashville Predators in time for the playoffs – which word has it he does – he can, much to the chagrin of the team’s Western Conference rivals. More…

Shacks’ Take: I’m having a hard time deciding how I feel about this one.  In some ways the Preds should be able to get their asset back but how is this really different from a player a team has rights to wanting to come back mid-season. 

Gary Bettman showing exactly how
much I trust him.

The NHL uses the excuse they would do this with any player under contract but there’s two problems with that statement, 1) No player has ever left the league under contract to play elsewhere so this is precedent setting as far as I know and 2) This should never happen again considering the NHL has transfer agreements in place preventing this from happening again.  The NHL knows it can rule in a way that best suits Bettman’s agenda since they’ll never have to rule on something like this again.

If I wasn’t so damn distrustful of the NHL and specifically Gary Bettman’s single-minded pursuit of American acceptance I would probably shrug at this decision but my conspiracy tin hat tells me if this were Edmonton, Calgary or Vancouver, the decision may not be the same. I’m just saying…