The Fall of Brad Richards

When the New York Rangers’ signed Brad Richards to a nine-year deal in the offseason of 2011, the team thought that they were getting one of the top players in the game as well as a player who could take them to that next level.

At the time, Richards was coming off a rather successful season with the Dallas Stars. In 2010-11, Richards finished the season with 28 goals and 49 assists for 77 points in 72 games.

For the Rangers, Richards, 33, was supposed to be the No.1 center that they had been missing for years. Richards was going to make every player around him better and was going to put up similar numbers that he did when was with the Stars and with the Lightning.

Well, if we are looking at what Richards was supposed to bring and do for the Rangers, than this deal has to be looked at as a disappointment. Yes, it is still early on in the deal and yes, he had some big goals for the team last year in both the regular season (nine game winning goals) and the postseason (game-tying goal with 6.6 seconds left to go in Game 5 against the Washington Capitals) but judging from what he has done this year as whole, it appears that Richards’ play is on a downward spiral.

For the first time in his career, Richards looked completely lost on the ice in the regular season. He was afraid to shoot the puck, he could not handle being the quarterback on the power play, he was benched a few times and his confidence looked shot.

In 46 games in the regular season, Richards had 11 goals and 23 assists for 34 points. Those numbers may not look bad but a lot of them came during the last week of the season against some of the weaker teams in the league.

Unfortunately for the Rangers’ and Richards, his struggles have carried over into the postseason. In eight games, Richards has just one goal on just 15 shots and is a -1.

In this postseason, Richards has not generated many scoring chances, has not been a factor on the team’s power play and much like he did in the regular season, looks like a player that has lost confidence in himself to do what he needs to do to be a good hockey player. For Richards, his poor play has led to head coach John Tortorella decreasing his minutes.

In his team’s 1-0 victory in Game 6 over the Capitals in the first round, Richards played just 9:34 minutes. While there were several penalties that kept Richards off the ice, Tortorella used the right guys in that game to sustain offensive zone play and at the time, Richards was not the right guy to be using.

In that Game 6, Richards played on the fourth line with Chris Kreider and Arron Asham. For a former Conn Smythe Trophy winner as the league’s most valuable player in the postseason in 2004 with the Tampa Bay Lightning, this was a strange site to see considering that Richards used to be a player that was a top line guy who could produce in all situations.

For someone that works hard and has had a lot of success in his career, it is unfortunate that Richards has not turned out to be the player the Rangers thought they were getting. What makes matters worse is that the Blueshirts may never end up getting to see that Richards at all.