Ever since he and his agent pulled a "hold out in Russia for more money" stunt in Columbus, Zherdev's reputation has taken a dive from "burgeoning superstar" to "enigmatic and inconsistent russian". At best. The fact that he had a rough season right after holding out for a big contract didn't help any.
Truth is, Zherdev was still a kid at the time, going through a kid's growing pains. Hell, he's still a kid at 24 years old. In terms of pure talent, he's up there. He's also already scored 20+ goals 3 times in his young career.
His boxcar numbers aren't staggering from last season (23-35-58), but keep in mind the Rangers were a brutal club in terms of offense at both ES and the PP. In contrast Zherdev's advanced ES stats speak pretty highly of him:
QUAL Comp: +0.03 (middling)
Corsi: +14.6 (second)
ESP/60: 2.56 (first)
+/-: +12 (first)
Zherdev outshot and outscored the opposition handily last year, even though most of his team was in the red in terms of plus/minus and he wasn't playing against 4th liners.
Of course, as per the Rangers habit of mismanagement, it looks Zherdev is on his way out of broadway. Apparently the club is annoyed that the kid filed for arbitration like 20 of this peers. Word is, the Rangers will walk away from any award that is too far north of 3M, making Zherdev a free agent. That also means the kid is up for grabs for peanuts prior to arbitration, meaning someone could pick Sather's pocket as long as they're prepared to deal with whatever Zherdev's awarded (or just negotiate a longer term deal with him before the hearing).
There's a good, young player up for grabs here. It'll be interesting to see who's paying attention.
