I was just reading Elliotte Friedman’s as-usual excellent 30 Thoughts column, and ran across this:

14. Another ESPN slave, Craig Custance, reported some teams had interest in Brent Sopel, playing for Metallurg Novokuznetsk. Teams are definitely looking for defencemen. Problem with Sopel is that, according to the NHL, any player who dressed for a game in another league after Jan. 19 must clear waivers. The KHL’s website indicates he played on Jan. 26.

Which sent of some bells and whistles in my head. When was the last game Ryan O’Reilly suited up for a KHL game?

Because I must be inept, I can’t seem to figure out the KHL website, and Jared Clinton did the heavy lifting and sent me the info. From this gamesheet, it looks like the last game was January 23rd.

So the question is, does Ryan O’Reilly have to clear waivers if the Avs sign him? Anyone know? Because that could be a severe hinderance to the process, eh?

My initial assumption is that this doesn’t apply, or the numbers are wrong, otherwise we would have heard much more about it before. Can someone let me know? Comments are open.