That said, I would find it hard to believe if you actually thought Zherdev was putting forth the effort and production you would expect from someone demanding $4 million. His track record doesn’t help him either. And when you consider that the Rangers have tons of money tied up in big, long-term contracts (Drury, Hank, Rosie, Redden, Gaborik), you simply cannot afford to take a chance on spending $4+ million/year on a player who is more in and out than Anne Heche. That’s a significant amount of money tied into a player you’re not really sure of, and the Rangers have enough of those already.

And as for anemic offenses, I really meant last years because well, it was. Near the bottom of the league in every major offensive category. I do agree that this year’s will be better, but we just have to wait and see…we all thought things were going to turn around when Gomez and Drury were signed in that offseason.

Plus, I spent three years living with a Sabres fan, and all I heard was “***ING KOTALIK!! YOU SUCK!!”

So I’m not sold on him.

I think I figured it out, you were the guy that bought the Zherdev jersey after hearing about the trade and finding all the info about Z from the you tube videos you watched. The guy had no heart, didn’t even try to gel with his teammates, and when push came to shove, he checked out. They didn’t call him the enigma for nothing. And with asking for 4+ million, you better not be an enigma, you need to be a proven commodity. You can say all you want about the money that has been thrown around, it was all done with fair market value in mind when contracts were signed. In the end, I rather have Redden than Z, at least Iceman showed at least a littl emotion…and never asked to be traded to a division rival…then laughed when asked about his salary demands. His conditioning was horrible, as evidenced by his play in Torts system, and he probably didn’t even work out over the summer. The enigmatic tumor won’t be working in the NHL again. The word is on the street and not team will take a chance on an overpaid , underplaying enigmatic 24 year old no matter how good his hands are.

13pts in 21 games is not great and not worth 4.5m (what Z allegaedly claimed) especially when that output came in bunches.

To ANNONYMOUS; Zherdev had 1(!) point in his last 14 games (inc. playoffs). You telling me we should miss that?! wow.

GREAT talent, i dont think anyone here is denying that, and had a good start in NYC but he used up all that credit in the last 2 months.

“He got off to a promising start, and after some spectacular dangling and stick work, everyone thought they got through to him. But somewhere along the way, he just fell off. There was no injury, no sickness, no talk of any dispute with coaches or the front office. He just stopped playing. We can’t even blame it on Tom Renney, because it continued after he was cut loose.”

After February the OT loss to Toronto that got Renney fired he play in 21 games for under Tortorella. He scored 13 points in those 21 games with 3 sets of back to back goal games. In April he had one assist. You are doing your readers a diservice by not supporting your spin with facts. In any case, you conveniently fail to mention that what little production he did have led the team of overpaid, underperforming Millionaires.

You have one less reader.

I dont think our offense will be anaemic either, by the way. I see Drury, Cally, Kotalik and Higgins all beign 20 goal scorers, i see a minimum of 35 from Gaborik and then you have x factors of Avery (12-15?) and Kotalik (17+?)….

i think we have promise.