Simon Gagne said yesterday that he has not waived his no-trade clause. That does not, however, mean that the Flyers have not spoken with Gagne about getting the go-ahead to seek trade possibilities or gotten his imput on teams to which he'd accept a trade.

****

News that Nikolai Zherdev had decided to play for the Philadelphia Flyers first broke in Russia yesterday, appearing on the Sport.ru site during the morning hours in North America. The reports appeared to jump the gun a little, saying an agreement was already in place. In reality, there was apparently some sort of agreement in principle on a contract and the deal figured to be completed in the next day or two.

For much of the day yesterday, the Flyers would neither confirm nor deny the report -- their silence serving as an "unofficial" confirmation that something was up with Zherdev, because the club is almost always very prompt about shooting down erroneous reports. As the day progressed, it was said off-the-record that a deal was close.

While anything is still possible until a contract is signed, sealed and delivered, all indications are that Zherdev will be a Flyer next season. Now the big question is what are the terms of the deal, and is there a cap-space clearing trade (probably of Simon Gagne) nearly completed that will allow the Flyers to take on Zherdev's contract, resolve their impending arbitration case with Dan Carcillo and re-sign restricted free agent.

I understand why the Flyers -- or any team -- would be intrigued by Zherdev's still-massive potential. In terms of pure physical ability, he has the speed, size and hands to be a premier NHL forward. He is still just 25 and has three 20-goal seasons in the NHL to his credit, although his consistency and work ethic have been chronic question marks.

There have been cases of players with similar upside taking years to develop and then blossoming into premier offensive players in the NHL after a change of scenery. Markus Naslund leaps immediately to mind, although confidence more than work ethic seemed to be the issue in Naslund's early years in the NHL. Unfortunately, there have been more cases of a change of scenery doing little or nothing to help turn around the player's performance (such as with ex-Flyers Pat Falloon, Alexandre Daigle and Pavel Brendl).

Purely in hockey terms, I think it's a reach at this point to consider Zherdev to be an effective replacement for Simon Gagne. I recently blogged about the reasons why the team is compelled to seek trade possibilities with Gagne, of which hockey reasons are of secondary consideration. While Gagne's offense has been spotty in two of the last three seasons -- largely due to injury issues and subsequent slow returns to form -- his defensive play and work ethic are never in doubt.

While Zherdev could replace Gagne's 17 regular season goals and 40 points from last season with relative easy, there's a lot of work to be done for him to score enough to make up for the areas where Gagne is superior. There are so many X-factors that make hockey unpredictable. Knowing whether one of your top-line players "feels" like giving an honest effort that night should never be one of them.

My broader-context opinion of the Zherdev signing once it's completed, will depend on how much cap space the Flyers would be saving relative to Gagne's $5.25 million cap hit and the assets the Flyers would get in return for Gagne.

*****

With the Flyers prospect camp underway in Voorhees, I thought now would be a good time to look at the top prospects in the Flyers' system (not all of whom are in attendance at the camp, which is actually geared more toward assessing and correcting prospects' conditioning regimens as it is about evaluating their on-ice skills).

Today's blog will look at the goaltenders. Next time around, I will look at defensemen, followed by forwards.


Sergei Bobrovsky: Bobrovsky is going to need a full season to adapt to the North American rink and to begin to make the various off-the-ice adjustments that are specific to Russian players living in North America for the first time. His on-ice performance over the second half of the upcoming season will be more telling than anything he does in the early going. I expect him to have his share of ups and downs over the remainder of the 2010 calendar year. At yesterday's prospect scrimmage, he allowed a reportedly "soft" goal on the first shot he saw and then faced little more than routine saves. That was the first baby-step on a long road to come. By this time next year, the club should have a better sense of what they have in the young undrafted free agent.

Joacim Eriksson: Nicknamed "Sunshine" at prospect camp two summers ago, the 20-year-old Eriksson is not in attendance this year due to commitments to Skelleftea AIK. He is coming off a stellar Allsvenskan season for Leksand, and is unquestionably a fine prospect. That said, I will caution that the move to Elitserien is a significant jump up in quality of opposition and that there will be an additional step up when he comes to North America. In an absolute best-case scenario, Eriksson could have a stellar season for SAIK in 2010-11, breeze through the AHL in 2011-12, get his feet wet in the NHL in 2012-13 and be ready to compete for a full-time starting role the following season at age 23. That's a mighty ambitious timetable.

I will also add that Eddie Lack, the goalie who switched places with Eriksson last year (Vancouver Canucks prospect Lack went from Leksand to Brynas to back up highly touted Jacob Markstrom, while Eriksson went from Brynas to Leksand) also had very good stats for Leksand, which has been a top Allsvenskan club in recent years but unable to recover its former Elitserien spot. Let's see what happens for Jocke at Sweden's top level in the next season or two.

Nicola Riopel: Riopel looked a bit overmatched at full training camp last year and struggled early in the season in limited AHL duty with the Phantoms. He was stellar upon being loaned back to Moncton, where he'd previously established himself as the most dominant goaltender in the QMJHL. He was an over-ager by the end of last season (Riopel turned 21 in February), and his postseason performance especially showed that he's ready for a shot at the next level. Now it's time to see how much the extra junior season helped him. Even if Riopel winds up being loaned to an ECHL team or another AHL club, which is a distinct possibility with Johan Backlund and Bobrovsky currently ahead of him on the Phantoms, his progress over his first full pro season is worth tracking.

Adam Morrison: The third-round pick from last year's draft had an up-and-down WHL season splitting time with Steven Sanford, who had a slightly superior save percentage (.904 to .895) and lower goals against average (2.64 to 3.29) while appearing in 6 more games than Morrison. The 19-year-old will return to the WHL for more seasoning. His play over the upcoming season will determine whether he's destined to be offered a professional entry-level contract.

Join the Discussion: » Comments » Post New Comment

» Lightning Strike Takes Down Jets

» Practice Day, Ersson, Jay Greenberg, A Personal Note

» Flyers Gameday: Game 12 vs. BOS

» Wrap: Brink Lifts Flyers over Blues, 2-1

» Game 11 Preview: Flyers vs. STL