By LARRY BROOKS

Nikolai Zherdev was the standout at yesterday's hyper-competitive second day of training camp, and no, that is not good news for the Rangers New York Rangers .

The fact is that the presumptive first-line right wing the Blueshirts acquired this summer from Columbus to fill the slot vacated by Jaromir Jagr Jaromir Jagr stood out for every wrong reason.

Though his teammates competed for the puck, took the body and drove to the net as if this were a mid-season practice conducted by a seething coach Tom Renney - much like the one in Philadelphia last Jan. 30, for example - Zherdev displayed no urgency whatsoever.

The 23-year-old took short cuts throughout the charged morning scrimmage, once turning over the puck while dangling one-on-one three feet inside the offensive line, the giveaway leading to a goal-against, and consistently failed to move either the puck or his feet with any obvious purpose.

Indeed, Zherdev, whose pseudo star-like body language on the ice has by far eclipsed his performance the first two days on the ice, was so ineffective with linemates Scott Gomez Scott Gomez and Markus Naslund that Renney switched the combination for a handful of shifts.

Even if the combination clicks - and it had better, because the Rangers don't appear to have any reasonable alternative to play up on the right side - there still is the question of which one of the three forwards will retrieve the puck when it's in the corners.

But after a second day of camp in which No. 13 was the laziest athlete on the ice. Yes, it's just two days, but it took only one day in 1999 to expose Pavel Brendl - there's not much question why Zherdev, the fourth overall selection of the 2003 Entry Draft, was an underachiever for most of his four-year tenure with the Blue Jackets.