Flyers Reel In Zherdev

The Flyers have been quiet since the opening day of the free agency period, where they made a number of deals to help fill out their squad. Now, the Flyers have managed to get Nikolai Zherdev to return from Russia, where he spent the 2010 season. Zherdev was made into an unrestricted free agent in August 2009 after the Rangers did not like what arbitration gave Zherdev, then he split to Russia a week later to play back at home. On Friday, the Flyers closed the deal, signing Zherdev to a 1-year, $2 million deal to play in the NHL again.

Zherdev has had some decent seasons in the NHL, topping out at 61 points in 2008 with the Blue Jackets, which actually ranked him 83rd overall in points, good enough to be a 4th or 5th round pick in some drafts.  His only season with the Rangers, in 2009, he had 58 points and was ranked 92nd overall, 68th among forwards.  He could be a bit of a sleeper pick with the Flyers, unless his attitude gets the better of him in Philadelphia.

Zherdev is known to be an exceptional offensive talent with a lot of defensive shortcomings, but the Flyers do have some of the best two-way forwards and now some of the biggest defensemen in the game, which could loosen the leash on Zherdev a little bit and make him into a pretty good threat.  The other downside to his game is his attitude, which his future teammate, Jody Shelley, knows all about, since he is also a former teammate from the Columbus days, which also makes things interesting.  That's something to consider here.

Forwards	Defense	Goalies
Mike Richards	Chris Pronger	Michael Leighton
Jeff Carter	Kimmo Timonen	Brian Boucher
Daniel Briere	Matt Carle
Scott Hartnell	Braydon Coburn
Simon Gagne	Andrej Meszaros
James Van Riemsdyk	Sean O'Donnell
Ian Laperriere
Blair Betts
Ville Leino
Jody Shelley
Riley Cote
Nikolai Zherdev

Now, this definitely becomes a massive numbers game. The Flyers could go into battle with the minimum line-up that you see here. They have four full lines of forwards, three defense pairings and a pair goalies, so technically, they could play. Unfortunately, I have them pegged at $60 million against the cap, meaning they are about $600,000 over. With talk of Simon Gagne possibly being asked to waive his NTC, the Flyers will have to make a move or two before the camps begin, but it's anyone's guess as to who may or may not go.

I don't think the Flyers really had that much trouble scoring goals in 2010, they ranked in goals per game with 2.83, so that wasn't too bad. Injuries also played a large part in some of their scoring droughts, not to mention worrying about whatever unfamiliar goaltender they had in net. Once they had some confidence, the Flyers were a deadly team in the playoffs, making it all the way to the Finals. I would imagine that this team would just need that same shot in the arm, see what happens.