On Friday, the courts in Arizona had found Nikolai Khabibulin guilty of excessive speed, extreme DUI and DUI over 0.08 and the 37-year old goalkeeper will now await his sentencing, which is scheduled to happen on Tuesday. Khabibulin is facing a minimum of a 30-day sentence for the DUI charges in Arizona, which will give him all sorts of issues surrounding training camp, travel between USA and Canada and likely some visa issues.
According to the Oilers website on Friday night, the organization and the league will be working together with Khabibulin for further actions after sentencing comes down on the charges, but until then, we will be left to speculate as to what will happen.It should be a fair bet to think that a league suspension will be handed down at the very least, but even a length is hard to determine today. There has been some chatter about invoking some clauses in a standard player contract that may be able to nix the remaining three years on his Khabibulin, but that could be an extreme decision. Until then, I don't think I'll make too many wild judgements, but I think it is a wise idea to stay away from Khabibulin in the pool draft until he has strapped the pads on and received whatever reception he'll get from NHL crowds.
No comments:
Post a Comment