| Nick Obergan. 5th July, 2011 - 10:42 pm
 The 2011 Free Agency class featured merely one legitimate All-Star, center Brad Richards. On July 1st, executives from Toronto, Buffalo, Tampa Bay, Calgary, Los Angeles, New York and who knows where else, all tried to reel in the consensus big fish, but it was the Rangers that ultimately landed the 31-year-old with a nine-year/$60M contract.
Quite frankly this result was not a big surprise, as nearly everyone in the industry believed that the Rangers were the front runners for the last month. They possessed the lure of a stable ownership (which Richards did not have when he was in Tampa or Dallas), a big hockey market (with Madison Square Garden to boot), a playoff team with hopes of contending next year, and a coach that Richards was very familiar with; him and John Tortorella won a Stanley Cup together in Tampa Bay.
Richards is a veteran of ten NHL seasons, amassing 716 points in 772 games. In six of those seasons he has reached the 70-point mark, eight times scored 20+ goals, and twice he has netted 91 points. In 63 career playoff games he has 21-41-62, including winning the Conn Smythe in 2004 after contributing 12-14-26 in 23 games. He will be tasked to bring his history of diligence, sportsmanship and leadership to a young Rangers core that believes it needed this one piece to become a Stanley Cup contender.
The biggest job that Richards will be given upon his Big Apple arrival will be finding the scoring touch that eluded winger Marian Gaborik last season that saw the $7.5M man drop from 42 goals to 22. Richards did register 49 assists this season despite missing ten games, and finished in the top-5 in assists last season with 67 helpers. The presence of Richards cannot hinder Gaborik, only help him. And he better, because despite making only $1M per season at ages 38-40, Richards will still be carrying a $6.67M cap hit.
If Richards performs at his point-per-game pace while aiding the return of Gaborik, the Rangers will be a greatly improved squad compared with the one that scored merely eight goals in the first round of the playoffs. The team has multiple blue-collar forwards that can do damage in Ryan Callahan, Brandon Dubinsky, Derek Stepan, Brian Boyle and Erik Christensen; they also have a sturdy young blueline that only figures to get better with Marc Staal, Dan Girardi, Michael Sauer, and Ryan McDonagh. Playing in front of the all-world Henrik Lundqvist, this team could potentially do some real damage next season.
Grade for New York: A-
Just like no one was really surprised when he signed in New York, no one is that surprised by the contract Richards signed either. Everyone figured he would get approximately $6.5M per season, and his cap hit ends up slightly above that. Everyone figured he would get a longer deal that would take him to retirement, but perhaps no one expected such a big cap hit on a deal that would take him until he is 40-years-old.
The deal is structured year-by-year as follows: $12M, $12M, $9M, $8.5M, $8.5M, $7M, $1M, $1M, $1M. Despite coming down hard on New Jersey for their first attempt at signing Ilya Kovalchuk, the NHL has still yet to deter teams from heavily front-loading contracts and tacking on marginal salaries at the end to bring down the overall cap hit. That said it all evens out: Richards will not be worth $12M in either of the next two seasons, and will probably not be worth over $8M for the three years afterwards; however he should be worth more than $1M for the final three years if he is still playing.
Hard to say that Richards was not able to get exactly what he wanted out of this free agency, since he was the only top tier free agent to make it to the open market.
Grade for Richards: A+
Nick is the NHL Feature Writer for RealGM. You can reach him by email nick.obergan@realgm.com or on twitter @NickObergan |
