@@Montreal Canadiens

Jeff Gorton’s full quote on Ivan Demidov with SKA in the KHL

  • October 16, 2024


“Because of the situation in the KHL not having an agreement with the (NHL), we can’t just end his contract any time we want. Everybody thinks we can buy him out of his contract, it’s not realistic.”

“We’re really excited about this player. He is very talented. We’ve seen what you see with his ice time dipping. We are in contact with the (SKA) organization. They know how we feel. This is the #1 reason why when we have a player like that…you wanna sign him and get him over and control all of it right away.”

“It’s a little bit out of our control right now and yeah it’s frustrating that he’s not playing more. At the same time, we know he’s a very gifted player. We also know their team has 35 players on it…”

“We’re gonna be patient and we’re excited for when he comes over here.”

https://x.com/antichambre/status/1846331497743372698?s=46

7 comments

  2. >We also know their team has 35 players on it…

    lol what? admittedly I haven’t bothered to actually look at Demigod’s situation, but that seems like an excessive amount of players on a hockey team.

  3. If there aren’t sanctions-related reasons why it is not possible to just buy players out of KHL contracts by throwing cash, there should be.

  4. I get Jeff isn’t going to just come out and say it’s sanctions, but let’s be honest, if SKA was owned by someone or some group that wasn’t currently under international sanctions due to their role in a genocidal illegal war, it’d be a lot easier to get him over here. 

  6. There’s nothing the habs can do to force SKA’s hand. I’m not even sure he can come over mid season. In theory Ivan can buy out his contract, but is that even an option mid season?

    It sucks but we just gotta be patient. He’ll be here next year. In the meantime maybe coach can get his head out of his ass and play the kid.

  7. This is so funny “they know how we feel”, it sounds like they think they are in western Corporate world and they sent escalation e-mail or friendly reminder “our future star doesn’t play enough”. Russians doesn’t play that game they will do whatever they want

Leave a Reply