RALEIGH, N.C. — Sitting thousands of miles from Europe at the Stanley Cup Final, it is easy to think only about the hockey ramifications of potentially welcoming Russian players back to international hockey tournaments.

Of course the NHL would like to have more of its marquee talents available as it more warmly embraces international events. That goes without saying. But a comment made by deputy commissioner Bill Daly during the annual State of the NHL news conference with commissioner Gary Bettman on Tuesday helps illustrate why the issue remains anything but easy for many with a stake in tournaments such as the 2028 World Cup.

Daly set off alarm bells a continent away when asked how the NHL was going to handle a potential boycott by Finland, Sweden or Czechia if Russia was allowed to return. The hockey federations in those countries have stood in strong opposition to the idea due to the ongoing Russian invasion of Ukraine. However, Daly told reporters he’d had a conversation on Tuesday morning with someone from the International Ice Hockey Federation, which assured him it wouldn’t be an issue.

“They don’t anticipate a problem with the Swedes and Finns, necessarily, or the Czechs right now, in terms of a boycott if it comes to that,” Daly said.

That notion was publicly rebuked by the Finnish federation on Wednesday. It released a statement credited to president Heikki Hietanen stating that there had been no movement on their end.

“The Finnish Ice Hockey Association’s position on Russia has not changed,” the statement read. “Nor have we had any discussions on the matter with any party.”

Alois Hadamczik, the head of the Czech federation, expressed a similar sentiment to reporters there.

“It’s clear to me that for the duration of the war that Russia unleashed, it cannot be allowed to play on the international hockey scene,” Hadamczik said, according to a translation of an article posted on sport.cz.

The Swedish federation didn’t issue a statement and did not immediately respond to a request for one from The Athletic, but notably, any Swedish player in the KHL is banned from playing for the national team. The IIHF also couldn’t be reached for comment.

This issue is back at the forefront of discussion for a couple of reasons: 1) The IIHF last week reversed a previous decision to ban Russia for all tournaments in 2026-27, saying it would instead go on an event-by-event basis, and 2) The NHL and NHL Players’ Association are currently in the process of organizing the World Cup of Hockey for February 2028.

That’s the next best-on-best tournament on the sport’s international calendar, which puts the league in an interesting position: While the NHL isn’t beholden to follow what the IIHF decides on Russia, a point Daly reiterated on Tuesday, it will be closely following how it navigates those waters.

Ideally, the IIHF would come to some sort of understanding with the Swedish, Finnish and Czech hockey federations, as Daly seemed to be under the impression it had.

That would provide a path for the NHL to follow.

It’s hard to imagine they’d try conducting a tournament without those three countries involved — particularly with the 2028 World Cup scheduled to stage round-robin games in Prague. And unless there’s an end to the invasion in Ukraine, there’s still little reason to believe that those countries have any willingness to participate in an event also including Russia.

That was certainly the feedback the NHLPA received from individual players during its leaguewide tour in the fall.

“Coming out of that, I can just say as much as we’d want — in a perfect world — we’d want any top country to be in an event, there were certainly players from other countries that were not comfortable at that time,” NHLPA assistant executive director Ron Hainsey said. “We’ll continue to talk to the guys.”

Time is not necessarily on their side, either.

For planning and logistical purposes, the field for the 2028 World Cup probably needs to be set at least a year ahead of time.

The NHL may get feedback in response to February’s All-Star Weekend after making a format change to the three-on-three tournament held during that event. There will now be teams of players representing the U.S., Canada, Finland and Sweden, plus a “World” team, which could theoretically include Czechs being selected to play alongside Russians, for example.

While that scenario isn’t likely to make many headlines in North America, there would almost certainly be scrutiny from back home brought against any player from a European nation who competed alongside a Russian — even for a fun exhibition — if the invasion of Ukraine hasn’t ended.

Based on the swift reaction to Daly’s comment in Europe, that much was clear. The view of the situation is much different on that continent than it is on this one.

Here in North America, there seems to be full alignment between the NHL and NHLPA on trying to create the circumstances where Nikita Kucherov, Kirill Kaprizov, Andrei Vasilevskiy and other Russians can take their place among the game’s other stars. The league and the union are back in the business of international hockey in a big way following a wildly successful 4 Nations Face-Off event in February 2025 and a return to the Winter Olympics in Milan earlier this year.

“Our Russian players want to play in best-on-best,” NHLPA executive director Marty Walsh said on Tuesday. “In a perfect world, we’d love to see them back in competition. There are a lot of other things going on here. Politics around the world. We’re kind of taking it a day at a time to see where we go here.”

Ultimately, the timeline for that return appears to be beyond the NHL’s full control.

As much as the door has been opened a crack to the broader discussion about Russia’s return to international hockey, the league is going to need to make sure that everyone else is fully on board to make it work.