HC Sibir terminated the contract with defender Fedor Gordeev

The press service of Fonbet of the Continental Hockey League (KHL) reported that Sibir terminated the contract with defenseman Fedor Gordeev. It was his name that was associated with the recent incident, which led to the deduction of points from the Novosibirsk club for violating the limit on foreign players. It also became known that Siberia failed to challenge this punishment, and now it risks not getting into the playoffs.

The story with 25-year-old Sibir defender Fedor Gordeev ended with the club losing not only points for violating the KHL regulations on the number of foreign players in the application, but also the player himself. The parties decided to terminate the contract, and this happened on the initiative of Gordeev, who will spend the rest of the season in the American Hockey League (AHL). True, Sibir retained the rights to the hockey player and is even going to conclude a new, already legitimate agreement with him.

Let us recall that when inviting Gordeev before the current season, the Novosibirsk club for some reason missed the point that the defender, although a citizen of the Russian Federation according to his passport, at the same time did not have Russian sports citizenship. Previously, he played for a long time in North America for clubs in the Ontario Hockey League, the East Coast Hockey League and the AHL. Gordeev had US sports citizenship, and given that due to this he could not play for the Russian national team, he automatically received the status of a foreign player in the KHL. Nevertheless, Siberia announced him for the regular season along with foreigners Andy Andreoff, Taylor Beck and Trevor Murphy. Thus, the Novosibirsk team violated the current limit on foreign players for Russian KHL clubs, which allows the participation of only three foreign players.

Despite the fact that in this case the automated system for checking the legitimacy of the use of hockey players did not work, the KHL, in accordance with the regulations, placed full responsibility for controlling the number of foreign players on the club.

As a result, the league punished Siberia for exceeding the limit in four matches, counting it a technical defeat. Since the team lost two of them in regular time, a total of four points were deducted from it. The Novosibirsk residents filed an appeal, but it was rejected.

The joint disciplinary chamber of the KHL and the Russian Hockey Federation (RHF), having considered Siberia’s application to cancel the decision to award technical defeats for exceeding the limit on foreign players in matches of the 2023/24 regular season, did not satisfy it. The club will no longer get back four points, which it really lacks in the fight for a ticket to the play-offs. At the moment, it ranks tenth in the Eastern Conference with 60 points, just four points behind Neftekhimik, which is on the border of the cup eight. “Sibir” has five matches left in the regular season, and compared to its competitors, including “Amur”, it has less chances to make it to the playoffs.

As for Gordeev, his season in the KHL, in which he played 42 matches and scored 7 points according to the “goal plus pass” system with a utility indicator of -2, is already over.

Although the FHR has already granted him Russian sports citizenship, according to the KHL regulations, it is determined at the time of the player’s application and does not change until the end of the championship. Therefore, the club released Gordeev to the AHL.

“He needs to play hockey, but he can’t play here,” said TASS General Director of “Sibir” Kirill Fastovsky. — What to do in the place of a hockey player? Asking the club to let him go is logical. Gordeev terminates the contract on his own initiative, the rights to it remain with the club, and we will conclude a new contract with him, which will be valid from the next season, when he will already have the status of a Russian. We are negotiating a two-year agreement.”

Alexander Ilyin