Post by The Rambler on Aug 20, 2009 10:10:21 GMT -5
An interview with Doug MacLean who was the former GM in Columbus
torontosportsmedia.com/sports-and-toronto/maple-leafs-improve-zherdev-needed/5295
torontosportsmedia.com/sports-and-toronto/maple-leafs-improve-zherdev-needed/5295
The Leafs, MacLean said may be in the hunt for the playoffs but certainly aren’t a shoe-in to make it. They have to pass a lot of teams including teams like the Senators who didn’t make the playoffs last season. A tall order he suggested.
Of greater interest was MacLean’s take on Nikolai Zherdev. Zherdev, is the reason MacLean got fired. At least, according to MacLean. The contract situation and the fallout from it got him canned. MacLean said that he should have known that Zherdev was going to be a handful when he asked him at the draft after he picked him at 18 years of age what car Zherdev drove and the response was “a Mercedes”. It was interesting that when MacLean told that story, there was silence after the “punch line”. Nikolai Zherdev, according to MacLean is one of the most talented kids he has ever seen. He is also one of the biggest enigmas. MacLean said that he tried literally everything to motivate Zherdev and instill a work ethic in him. He even signed Sergei Federov whom MacLean considers the greatest Russian born NHLer of all time. MacLean took lots of lumps for signing Sergei, but thought if only he could get through to Zherdev… One day Federov came to MacLean and pretty much gave up. Federov said that he couldn’t talk to Zherdev anymore, that Zherdev simply didn’t want to listen. Then MacLean out a real gem. He said that when he went to Zherdev’s place after he was gone, the landord of Zherdev’s place said that he was called to change the locks on Zherdev’s apartment 6 times in the one season he played there! The guys asked MacLean if perhaps Zherdev was guilty of poor judgement, MacLean just laughed and said “ohhhh the book I could write!”
