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A Radulov Snag? Plus.... Bryzaster Averted? |
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Reports out of Russia this morning via @dchesnokov (who is speaking to Radulov's agent) and @plysenkov are not good news for Preds fans hoping to get Radulov now.
According to the reports Radulov wants to leave for Nashville immediately, but his team Salavat is not yet granting him permission to leave. KHL rules state Salavat can only retain his rights if Radulov leaves in the fall and keeping his rights is a big deal of course to Salavat. Per Chesnokov if the two sides were to "terminate their contract now he can leave but Salavat lose his rights...dead end now."
I talked to a Preds source and the Preds are pretty funny about this whole thing. They honestly are getting the news as we are and have no idea what's happening at all...all the while sticking to their stance.."We would welcome Radulov back if he comes over." The Preds are a finely tuned machine and there is absolutely no sense of panic in them. While some teams would say they are fine either way, with the Preds you really believe it, and while some teams would say they don't have any more info, with the Preds you fully believe it.
It is of course hard to ignore the great irony of this situation however. Here is a player who broke his contract with Nashville, who absolutely had no permission to go to the KHL, and now the Preds are waiting for him to get "permission" to return to a contract he signed that per-dated the KHL contract? Yeh....
Again, this is the KHL and Russian news/leaks tend to be extremely rare and when we get news out of Russia it's hard not to wonder about the validity and the spin going on here. Were it not for twitter breaking down the barriers a bit we would have almost nothing.
The Russian hockey folks have already stated there would be "No iron curtain keeping Radulov in Russia" which is interesting for sure, and I can't help but wonder if there aren't side deals being made as we speak to work through this "dead end for now" situation. The KHL is nothing if not liquid in its rules and ow they enforce them.
Why do I think there may be talks going on to work this out?
As one NHL person put it, "Radulov could be considered a unique case considering the KHL's recent desires for NHL acceptance. Given the fact that he broke an NHL rule by going over there it isn't inconceivable that the KHL could make some sort of exception here and allow his team to retain his rights even were he to come now as opposed to the fall..."
So, we wait.
Bryzaster Averted?
At the trade deadline it would have been hard to find a Flyers fan who would have not traded Bryzgalov for almost any other goalie out there. When a free agent signing starts to get compared to the Isles signing of Yashin you know it's not looking good. Then the Flyers went on the road and somehow Bryzgalov got his game back.
The Flyers didn't go out and get an insurance policy goalie, and instead traded for two defensemen, in Grossmann and Kubina, who each had over 100 blocked shots already this season. the strategy was clear...block every thing possible and hope Bryzgalov gets his game back...somehow.
Well all of the sudden he apparently has. As we sit here this morning, Bryz is riding three straight shutouts and 4 shutouts in his last 5. He now has 6 shutouts on the season with a dozen games to go. It should be noted that last year, as a team, the Flyers did not record a single shutout.
So what has happened?
There probably has never been a better case of how much goaltending is a team sport than this one. The Flyers are built to score. They are at their core a high octane " (bleeping) get up and go team." Bryzgalov's resurgence has seen a huge drop off in offensive numbers for the Flyers. They have bought into the kind of team Bryzgalov works with...they have incorporated as much of the Phoenix Coyotes defense collapsing system as possible, and as they have done this they have made Bryzgalov a confident goalie again.
It was as if the team and the goalie were an arranged marriage and after the trade deadline they realized this was for life and they better figure it out.
There is a problem here however...the Flyers forwards aren't going to be able to be held back forever and this is a team who shouldn't have to win 1-0, 2-1 games to survive. I believe there will come another point when the push back will come and Bryzgalov will be left to make more open ice stops again...The hope in Philly will be that this stretch of confidence building will be enough to get Bryzgalov through when that happens. The risk is will this team be able to throw the switch and return to the highest scoring team in the NHL? You would think so, but we will find out soon enough.
More to come...
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