More on the Zherdev incident

Russian news channel Life News reports the following on the incident between Nikolay Zherdev and his wife:

The incident occurred at around 4 pm in front of the restaurant Osteria di Campagna.

According to Zherdev's wife, Evgenia Chernova, 33, she was not with her husband at the restaurant. Nikolay was at the restaurant and called his wife to come and pick him up. He also told his wife to hurry up and that he didn't want to wait for long. Evgenia describes Nikolay being in a bad mood that day.

Evgenia drove to the restaurant, parked the car and waited for Nikolay to come to the car. Nikolay went to the car, but couldn't get in as Evgenia had locked the doors. Apparently meant as a joke, but it only angered Nikolay.

"He grabbed the first thing he found - a metal object - and started pounding on the car", Evgenia told the police. "At the same time he yelled at me that he was going to kill me."

An eyewitness of the incident, a security guard of the restaurant, Vyacheslav, told his own version of the story, noting that it was Chernova who provoked the incident.

"When she arrived, especially in the beginning, she kept going back and forth, teasing him. That's when the man lost his nerves. He grabbed a road triangle and hit the car twice."

Interestingly, according to Vyacheslav, Zherdev never shouted 'I will kill you', but 'I love you'.

Nonetheless, Chernova hurried away and left the scene. After an hour she returned, accompanied by police officers.

According to preliminary estimates, the damage Zherdev caused to the car is worth around $35 000.

Leino earning ice time

Ville Leino is happy with the way his line has kept playing.

"We’ve played well most of the time and you don’t want to fix something that isn’t broken. The coach seems to trust us a lot and that’s a good thing. Our line has been kept together and things have gone well overall."

Leino laughs when he tells that even their team mates haven’t been able to name their line.

"I haven’t heard any suggestions. It’s been a pretty tough job to find a name for us. I haven’t even heard anyone [on the team] making fun of us, and usually they don’t go that easy on you."

"Everyone on the team has been happy with the way our line has worked."

Leino says the competition for roster spots in the lineup is enjoyable, but tough.

"It does motivate you, but it isn’t always that easy either. I’d gladly play more."

"Of course winning is nice, but you have to earn your ice time. It’s not easy to get into the lineup."

At the same time, Leino says it’s not easy to be the coach on a stacked team like the Flyers. He thinks Peter Laviolette has done a good job at it.

"It’s not easy for the coach to play his players when you have lots of good players. Laviolette has been fair with the way he hands out ice time. Nothing comes free and I’m sure it’s the only way to play a good team. It’s hard to keep everybody happy when there are many good players, but I think he’s done a good job at it."

After losing in the Stanley Cup finals twice in a row, it’s no surprise if winning the Cup is the main goal for Leino this season.

"It is the ultimate goal. I know how hard it is to win it. It’s the main goal for this season."

To reach that goal, the Flyers must have success in the playoffs and for that to happen, the team must keep working hard right now. There is no room to loosen up.

"When you’re playing this time of the season and it looks like you’re clearly in the playoffs, you have to remember to keep working hard. If you let things go a bit and lose focus, you can get stuck with that mindset in the playoffs."

"Everything is possible, but I don’t see huge problems for us as long as we keep working at 100%."


Source: Yle