Last summer it was defenseman Evgeny Medvedev. This summer, it’s another splash into the Russian pool for Ron Hextall and the Flyers, who today announced that they’ve signed free agent forward Roman Lyubimov to an entry-level contract. It’s a one-year deal due to the rules regarding ELCs.
Lyubimov joins the Flyers after spending much of the last four years with CSKA Moscow in the KHL. In 185 career KHL games, Lyubimov has just 15 goals and 19 assists, so it doesn’t appear that he has much high-end offensive potential here. We’ll admit that we’ve never seen him play and that we aren’t exactly avid watchers of CSKA (or the KHL at all), so it’s hard to know how Lyubimov was used by coaches there.
But our best guess is that he’ll be extra competition in training camp on those bottom two lines. At 6’2, 207 pounds according to Elite Prospects, he’s certainly a big boy and that could be part of what made him attractive to the Flyers and their scouting staff.
Lyubimov was a member of Russia’s bronze medal winning World Championships team in May. We’ll try to learn more about Lyubimov and report back when we do.
