On Friday, Continental Hockey League president Alexander Medvedev said that he believes Salavat Yulaev Ufa's signing of Alexander Radulov and the Columbus Blue Jackets' signing of 2008 first-round pick Nikita Filatov fell beyond the boundry lines of the NHL's verbal agreement with the various European Hockey Federations not to sign contracted players.

However, with the IIHF investigating the Radulov signing and requesting the KHL void Radulov's contract, the KHL has struck back. It has asked the IIHF to investigate Filatov's contractual status with CSKA Moscow.

The KHL and CSKA claim that the 18-year old forward has not completed his obligations to CSKA and the club, under Russian law, has the right to either demand compensation for Filatov's rights to be released or to demand the player return to Moscow to play next season.

CSKA claims Filatov has one year remaining on the contract he signed when he was promoted from its farm team in the third-tier Russian league (Russian hockey doesn't have the same junior structure as other European countries, but the farm teams serve the same purpose).

Filatov disputes it. In the months leading up to the NHL Entry Draft, he repeatedly told NHL scouts and teams that he'd be be free to play anywhere he wanted next season, and his goal was to play in North America immediately.

An explanation of the "release fee": In lieu of an NHL transfer agreement and given the change in Russian labor law governing early termination of contracts, Russian teams have informed players who want out of their contracts to go to North America that they can become free agents if they essentially buy their way out of their own contracts.

The team sets the fee and the player and/or his agent can then try to negotiate it. For a player such as Filatov -- whom CSKA wanted to keep and the KHL had initially hoped would be a poster child of sorts for top young players electing to stay home -- the fee could be extremely high.

The idea behind is to pressure players like Filatov to stay home by making it a poor financial move to sign even a maximum NHL entry-level contract. Alternatively, the team pockets more money than it would have gotten by participating in the prior NHL-IIHF transfer agreements. This strategy was enacted after attempts to go through the U.S. court system to compel the returns of Alexander Ovechkin and Evgeni Malkin failed.

So here's where things stand: Filatov and Columbus insist the player was a free agent, nothing was or is owed to CSKA and his signing was entirely legal. While the NHL has not made a statement specific to Filatov's situation, it's pretty clear the league believes the signing to have been legal under the terms of NHL rules, the no-poaching understanding and KHL rules.

If the IIHF rules that Filatov's signing was illegal, it will request the NHL to void his deal in lieu of CSKA agreeing to release the player. Otherwise, Filatov faces a ban from playing for Russia at the World Junior Championships. Things will also be extremely messy in getting Filatov cleared to play OHL hockey for Sudbury without an approved transfer. He could also play in the AHL for the Syracuse Crunch and accept a suspension from playing for the Russian national team.

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