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“Guys are coming over and I want to play in the best league in the world,” Soshnikov, speaking with the help of a translator, said when asked why he decided to leave the KHL. “It’s not about the ruble and stuff like that. It’s more like ‘Why not me? Why can’t I play in the NHL?’ So I came here and started playing and try to make the team.”

Soshnikov’s situation is not exactly unique. While the KHL was initially perceived as a talent-poaching threat to the NHL when it opened its operations — according to QuantHockey.com, the number of Russians in the NHL dropped from an all-time high of 73 in 2000-01 to just 29 in 2012-13 — the cases of players leaving are becoming few and far between.

KHL teams are folding. Sponsorships are drying up. And because of a ruble that is now worth .65 cents on the U.S. dollar — it has lost 50 per cent of its value since the start of 2014 because of plummeting oil prices and sanctions due to the conflict in Ukraine — players are no longer making the kind of money that they once were. In some cases, they are not even getting paid.

“They were stealing from our families while operating and preparing the club for the upcoming season by signing new players,” Canadian-born goaltender Mark Dekanich, who played for Medvescak Zagreb, said in an email to Postmedia News. “All who did not return to play for Medvescak are in the same situation.”