Moncton Wildcats get Vladimir Tkachev back after Edmonton Oilers barred from signing him due to European experience

To someone, somewhere, it makes sense that Vladimir Tkachev would have been able to sign with the Edmonton Oilers if they had, say, drafted him in the sixth round.

The Moncton Wildcats, as it turns out, will get St. Louis Blues-drafted centre Ivan Barbashev's presumably favourite linemate back a little sooner than expected. Tkachev was the revelation of the Oilers camp after coming in as an undrafted free agent, but as Edmonton found out when it tried to file his contract on Tuesday, Tkachev cannot sign since he did not play all of last season in North America. (He didn't join the 'Cats until Jan. 21.)

From the Edmonton Journal:

Talk about some harsh barley. There's probably no point in dissuading anyone from pillorying the Oilers organization for supposedly not knowing the wording of the NHL collective bargaining agreement; people do what they will.

However, as Fedor Fedin of Russian Machine Never Breaks pointed out, the wording is a little unclear. The CBA states a player who is fewer than 20 years old can sign a contract (i.e., be eligible for the NHL) if "had played hockey in North America the prior season and was under age 20 at the time of the last Entry Draft." Another clause explains that "prior season" equals a full season in North America. Those two games with Omsk essentially are a deal-breaker for signing as a free agent. Hence the confusion.

The same scenario has come up in two of the past three seasons. In 2011, the Philadelphia Flyers had hopes of signing 18-year-old Tomas Hyka, who had just come to North America to play with the QMJHL's Gatineau Olympiques. The Flyers found out Hyka had to go through the draft. After playing that season in Gatineau, he was ultimately taken No. 171 overall by the Los Angeles Kings in 2012.

There was also the case of Australian wing Nathan Walker, who left the Czech Republic's HC Vitkovice to join the United States league's Youngstown Phantoms in 2012-13. The Washington Capitals found out the stint in Europe kept them from signing the then 19-year-old Walker. They took a creative course of action by having their AHL farm team, the Hershey Bears, sign Walker. Then they drafted him No. 89 overall in the draft this past June (theoretically, another team could have swooped in earlier, but that would have seemed rather churlish).

Upside

Three times in four years, though, hardly makes this commonplace enough to be a big CBA issue. It's justifiable, though, to see this as unfair to Tkachev, who tallied a combined 39 points over just 26 regular and post-season games with the 'Cats. He came to Moncton with the presumable aim of showing that he could be productive in North American hockey and has delivered on it. At the same time, if the mid-season move proscribes signing a NHL contract the following September, then what incentive will there be for a team to include a player with that history in its main training camp, which is a big development opportunity? The Oilers, after all, might have just made Tkachev more attractive to the other 29 teams.

There likely will be some signing-the-first-contract thrill for Tkachev, but it will now come some time after the 2015 NHL draft. The upshot is that Tkachev has already allayed concerns about whether his small size could hold him back at the next level. He's also due to return to a Moncton team right as it's getting its top attackers back in the lineup alongside Barbashev.

The rule is the rule, and it all likely tracks back to the NHL-IIHF transfer agreement and trying to keep players from jumping between the two puck precincts willy-nilly. It will be interesting to see whether another signing snafu occurs.

Neate Sager is a writer for Yahoo! Canada Sports. Follow him on Twitter @neatebuzzthenet.