[morgin]

MOU exists because they didn't have time to draft a full CBA before the season got going.

MOUs are typically full of problematic drafting. This is not new. it's a result of having a short document trying to summarize complicated concepts.

This is likely an issue no one really anticipated in the drafting of the MOU - it's clear by the "for further clarity" statement they contemplated situations involving trading RFA rights, but they didn't specifically address in the drafting whether the new waiver would apply to offer sheets. The use of "a Club's reserve list" vs. "Player's Club's reserve list" or "the Club holding the rights to that Player's reserve list at the start of the season" is sloppy and evidences the issue.

Feaster is 100% right that there was a possible issue to advance with the league if they took a contrary position (which they kind of have but kind of haven't?). If the agreement was that each club should have a list of RFA's who would be waiver exempt, and that exemption only applied for those players when they signed to that team, it should say so, vs being ambiguous about whether it was enough that the player was on someone's list.

Is it kind of bush league that this came out in public the way it did? Sure. I'm of the opinion though that had no one noticed the sloppy MOU drafting, and had Colorado not made this moot by matching, no one involved would have actually interpreted it the way the NHL is saying now. They would have interpreted it the way Feaster does, which is that the exemption was meant to allow RFAs who played overseas during the lockout to not fall within the waiver rule of the old CBA, which allows rights trading and offer sheets to operate as they would had this not been a wonky season with the lockout.

So, Feaster may be taking the heat for this, but I think that the likely outcome would have never actually involved this waiver BS had Colorado not matched. This is a non-story in a lot of ways.