Malkin 1, Russia 0

US courts ruled yesterday that the Russian Hockey Federation was unable to stop Malkin and the other Russian players, who gave their 2 week notice, from playing in the NHL. This means that Malkin will be here for the whole year and that this legal problem will most likely be done with. The fact that the motion was flatly rejected means that Russia really has no chance of winning a court case.

The next question is will this cause Russia to quit seeing green and sign the transfer agreement. It is probably likely as they have been close many time to signing only to have Malkin's Russian team stop it because they wanted a big pay day but now probably won't get anything from him. They took a gamble and lost now it is back to the drawing board.