Wednesday, August 03, 2011

Zherdev Heads Home

In the 2011 season, Nikolai Zherdev returned from the KHL to play with the Philadelphia Flyers and his impact with the club was next to nothing, not really posting good numbers for his projected talent level.  Zherdev finished with 22 points (16 goals and 6 assists) in only 56 games, ending up as a regular in the press box as a healthy scratch through the year and missing a couple of games to a groin injury.  Adding all of that up, Zherdev headed to unrestricted free agency and did not get the kind of offers he was hoping for, so he is on his way back to Russia to play in the KHL again.

Reports out on Twitter on Wednesday suggest that he did receive some interest in the NHL, but the dollar figures were not to his liking, so he is on his way home.  Since there was some interest, I wouldn't necessarily count another return to the NHL out for Zherdev, but he'll likely have to take that pay cut to play in North America.

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