Revisiting the Richard's Trade

[aziz]

If you like the team better without them, so far you just like a team that doesn't play as well or win as much.

 

stop.  this.  

 

you again go to that well implying that the primary difference between the team now and when those two were members is that those two were members.  way way too much has happened to the roster between then and now to keep pretending like that is the only important change, that the "now" is a direct result of not having those two around anymore.  it isn't.  frankly, they've been replaced.  the issues with the team now are in entirely different positions.

 

also, by my math, the flyers had a .490 winning percentage during richards and carter's tenure.  they've had a .531 since they left.  

[radoran]

Is that really that much of an impressive run? Serious question, because for me personally it's not. It's nice and it's always better to be in the mix than not ( I get it, I honestly do), but I don't look at that and think, "Wow, we were really fortunate to have him and it's a time in Flyers history I'll never forget." There's dozens if not hundreds of players who played for one team for a fairly long period of time, that team was successful during that time, but never won the whole thing.

 

The fact that he won a cup the second he went to another young talented team, but wasn't asked to be "the man" only illustrates the point. Here we have this guy who we are told "has won at every level" and when asked to do it here could not, but goes somewhere else and has the pressure taken off him and bam...cup. How does that not speak volumes to his inability to lead? That's not to say he isn't a good, contributing player, he clearly is. He has value on a team. I am the guy who started the thread about him not being on team Canada. I recognize his place and value to a team. But as the focal point? That's just not him if you ask me.

 

I can't ignore that cup run and by that I mean the bad parts of it. The good is easy. The good can't be denied. They made it to the cup. It goes without saying, but it's obviously a good thing. But that whole season, that cup run, that's not the way to play hockey. You can't expect to wait until the last day of the season to make the POs or to come back from 0-3 (which is virtually impossible) that way that group did. He was the leader of that "flip the switch" mentality.

 

The "flip the switch" and "anything can happen if you make the playoffs" mentality is still the stated philosophy of the team to this day.

 

Again, just "blame" to go around for everyone.

 

That said, I do think it's hard to say that a team that lost to Cup Finalists in every year he was captain (and Cup winners three times) was "lacking leadership."

 

You criticize Richards for what he didn't do once he was put into a position by management. I criticize that, too. But I also have to look at the guys who put him in that position and were blowing the "next Clarke" line up from the moment he was drafted up to the moment he was traded away.

 

And, again, those guys still have the same philosophy that you criticize Richards for...

[fanaticV3.0]

I've got to agree with this. Richards comments about the media "throwing the team under the bus" seems to bear out that he held their opinion in Very High Regard. And that was in a little-known rag called The Hockey News.

 

Then he lambasted the Daily News and got into a verbal spat with reporters.

 

I agree with JackStraw that a millionaire professional athlete shouldn't give the hind quarters of a rodent what the media says, but Richards clearly did.

 

Yes. This. Completely agreed.

[JackStraw]

I've said explicitly and believe now that if the Flyers don't win a Cup with the "new core" that I would give a negative evaluation to the trades.

 

I wouldn't, and won't, because the purpose of those trades from the Flyers perspective was to start a rebuilding process. If that process continues, and at some point in the future we can say that the players that were acquired in those two trades are the reason the Flyers didn't win the Cup, then I guess you could say it was a bad trade. But I don't think it's likely that anyone will be able to say such a thing.

 

 

 

Do I believe they "would have" won without the trades? Nothing is guaranteed. But with Richards as captain they made the Conference Finals twice, the Final once and lost to the eventual Cup champion three times

 

In that vein, they got to the finals with Michael Leighton. True story. And with Crater/Richards they were humiliated by the Bruins. Did they look like they were headed in the right direction at that point? And even with the Crater/Richards juggernaut, they needed a shootout win on the final day (in what universe does Boucher beat Lundquist in a shootout?) just to make the playoffs. Arguing that this was a team that was clearly headed for a championship is being very, very, optimistic I think.

 

 

 

I had a similar conversation after the Pronger trade (in person) with davies about whether or not it would be a "good trade" for the Flyers. I said if the Flyers win the Cup with Pronger, it was a good trade. If not, I don't think it was.

 

I thought it was a bad trade on the day it was made. If the Flyers had won the Cup it still would have been a bad trade on its own merit, but it would have been worth it.

 

PS: A bag of pucks for Rosehill is a bad idea.

Edited January 16, 2014 by JackStraw

[radoran]

also, by my math, the flyers had a .490 winning percentage during richards and carter's tenure.  they've had a .531 since they left.  

 

Ah, statistics.

 

If you include the 06-07 season, then you have a point with your numbers.

 

If you look at the team with Richards as captain it's a little different - 388 points out of 656 - .591 winning %.

 

The year he was traded, they were 1st in the Atlantic with 106 points - .646. Since then they were 3rd (.628), 4th (.510) and are currently at .553.

 

The devil's not only in New Jersey, he's also in the details

[radoran]

I thought it was a bad trade on the day it was made. If the Flyers had won the Cup it still would have been a bad trade on its own merit, but it would have been worth it.

 

So, instead of "who won" and "who lost" trades, we can at least agree we can decide what trades were "good" and "bad"?

[aziz]

The devil's not only in New Jersey, he's also in the details

 

yeah, but he's FROM new jersey, yet you bring him into the conversation.  

 

lol

[fanaticV3.0]

The "flip the switch" and "anything can happen if you make the playoffs" mentality is still the stated philosophy of the team to this day.

 

Again, just "blame" to go around for everyone.

 

That said, I do think it's hard to say that a team that lost to Cup Finalists in every year he was captain (and Cup winners three times) was "lacking leadership."

 

You criticize Richards for what he didn't do once he was put into a position by management. I criticize that, too. But I also have to look at the guys who put him in that position and were blowing the "next Clarke" line up from the moment he was drafted up to the moment he was traded away.

 

And, again, those guys still have the same philosophy that you criticize Richards for...

 

I don't agree with that at all. This team is what it is. They've earned every bit of their record. They are inconsistent, talented, untested, and have potential. That cup team was better than a .500 team, they just didn't apply themselves all the time.

 

When you are the captain of your juniors team, lead an AHL team to a Cup, and are generally considered "a winner" that's what happens. Good players are asked to shoulder the load. Richards was not placed in a situation that 100s of others his age (or even younger) have been. Some of them have even succeeded in that role. If we're talking about money and length of contract, I agree with you. Naming him captain? Tough ****, that's part of being a good hockey player.

Edited January 16, 2014 by fanaticV3.0

[JackStraw]

Bre said it best, it was not a hockey trade, there was something else going on. Technically, his behavior and habits affect the team, so it is a "hockey trade" in that sense, but the point is he wasn't traded because he was a bad player. He was traded because he was a piss poor leader, moody brat, and that affected the rest of the team. If you think for one second that he was traded for other reasons, you've got your head buried pretty far up his ass.

 

I can guarantee you that's not the case because I was never much of a Richards fan. I actually liked Carter more, for whatever that's worth. But my issues with Richards weren't because of any off ice or media issues, I just thought he was a bit over rated by many Flyers fans. He's not a very good skater, and he's not especially skilled. I'm way past the "he's a Flyers kind of player" thing. He was gritty and tenacious, but like I said, I'll take Giroux as my franchise player every day over Richards.

 

But no, I don't think he was traded because of off-ice issues. I think he was traded because LA made Homer a great offer. I think if he had been a choirboy and media darling Homer still makes that trade. Schenn is bigger, a better skater, and more skilled. At the time he was widely considered the best prospect in the world not in the NHL. Throw in a gritty young power forward like Simmonds (a "Flyers kind of player), and a 2nd round pick, and that's a no-brainer to me.

[King Knut]

I'm not the one who brought this up!  How am I not over the trades?  They're done! 

I'm just not sugar coating the reality of it.

Don't mistake that for anything other than what it is.

 

I'm not one of the people who started misguidedly suggesting the team is better off without them (for which there is as of yet no factual basis).

I actually CAN accept that they are gone... because they are.  If I couldn't accept that they were gone, I might have started a thread saying, "Gee whizz!  If only Richards and Carter were still here!"  But I didn't.  I don't think like that.  I don't even think in terms of "what if JVR were still here?"  I am more apt to think in terms of "Gee, I'm sick of Luke Schenn not being good yet."

 

I have repeatedly said that I like the guys we got for them.  All year I was the guy on this board saying, "No, seriously, Coots is really really good!" when other guys wanted to trade him for God knows what bag of magic beans and junior superstars.

 

I have repeatedly called out acquiring Bryzgalov as the MAJOR FLAW in that summer's strategy (why would you trade your "win now" players for "win later" players and then blow a **** load of money for a "Win yesterday" goalie?  You can't discuss the Richards and Carter trades without discussing Bryzgalov becasue in essence even though he was a Free Agent, he was the center piece of those deals.

 

I'm over their absence, I honestly, truly am.  I like Simmer, Coots, Jake and Brayden.  I like some of them more than others, but I like them all. 

 

I'm just not going to delude myself into thinking that it's "worked out" for the Flyers.   It hasn't.  Not yet. 

I'm not going to delude myself into thinking that Richards and Carter were bad for this team.  They weren't.  I don't need to think that way. 

Complaining about Richards and Carter at this point with the 20/20 vision of hindsight is really kind of sad and a bit out of touch with reality and the only reason I could see why anyone would feel the need to do it is if they needed to make themselves feel better about the trades in retrospect.  I don't need to justify the trades. I don't need to somehow make it okay that the Kings won a cup with the exact players that many here seemed to think were the cancer keeping the Flyers from winning one.

 

There's hope that the Flyers could get better again and be good again -though if the NHL and NHLPA hadn't let us buy out Bryzgalov, this might not ever have happened.

Honestly the ability to correct that egregious mistake is the only think making this team remotely viable going forward... and the mistake was more about his contract than his play on ice.  Any shitty goalie aging out of his prime can be made a backup.  Bryz was dominating headlines with bad translations and locking up cap space that the team desperately needed elsewhere.

 

Anyway, do you see what I'm saying?  They're gone.  I know that.  I also know that they have done much better since leaving than the Flyers have. 

Suggesting otherwise is delusional.  Honestly, I'm okay with their success.  I really am.  I am happy for them and for the Kings.  And I'm happy for the Flyers that our guys can finally start to move forward again.  The only thing I'm asserting is that we're just now starting to maybe move forward again, and even that is still in question.  The Flyers aren't yet better than they were in 2010 and 2011.  The Kings are.

 

Suggesting that the Flyers could do as well as the Kings have done is optimistic and I applaud that sense of idealism... but that's what it is.  Optimistic conjecture.  I hope it unfolds that way.  I truly do.

 

 

 

 

 

You're the one who can't accept the fact he is gone (and really had to go). You keep proclaiming him a great leader, despite his lack of cups as a captain.

[radoran]

I don't agree with that at all. This team is what it is. They've earned every bit of their record. They are inconsistent, talented, untested, and have potential. That cup team was better than a .500 team, they just didn't apply themselves all the time.

 

When you are the captain of your juniors team, lead an AHL team to a Cup, and are generally considered "a winner" that's what happens. Good players are asked to shoulder the load. Richards was not placed in a situation that 100s of others his age (or even younger) have been. Some of them have even succeeded in that role. If we're talking about money and length of contract, I agree with you. Naming him captain? Tough ****, that's part of being a good hockey player.

 

How can you not agree that the "make the playoffs and anything can happen" mentality is still the philosophy of the team when management said exactly that at the season ticket holder meetings before this season???

 

Richards was a product of that mentality, not the root cause of it.

 

Again, the apparently rudderless ship captained by Richards finished 1st in the division with a .646 winning % in his last season as captain.

 

They haven't hit that winning percentage and haven't even sniffed the top of the division since the trade.

[JackStraw]

But I don't think it helped and may have given the team the cover they were looking for to obfuscate the issue.

 

Yeah, except I've never heard anything from any team "source" that suggested that. If the assets changing hands didn't measure up I could see why one might look for more nefarious explanations. But Schenn, Simmonds, and 2nd is excellent value for a player like Mike Richards... IF you don't feel you are on the cusp of being a contender (which the Flyers gave no sign of being). And once you trade your top goal scorer, it makes even more sense to "go big" and commit to the rebuild.

[brelic]

Sorry. The one time I don't use my crystal ball...

 

Don't feel bad. Nobody has one... well, no one who is sane.

 

It still sounds like you are excusing them to be completely honest. Yeah, they did have the team on their shoulders, so what? That's what happens in the big leagues. You might not mean it this way, and if you don't I apologize, but it sounds like you're just blaming the team for putting too much pressure on them. Like I said, if you don't mean it that way, don't take it personal. I'm just too cynical to see it otherwise.

 

No, I'm not blaming the team for putting too much pressure on them. They were the official leaders on the team (along with Kimmo), and there were a number of unofficial leaders, like Briere, Pronger, Gagne, Hartnell. Richards accepted to be captain of the team, so he has to accept and deal with the failures that come with that role.

[JackStraw]

So, instead of "who won" and "who lost" trades, we can at least agree we can decide what trades were "good" and "bad"?

 

Agree to agree.

[radoran]

Yeah, except I've never heard anything from any team "source" that suggested that. If the assets changing hands didn't measure up I could see why one might look for more nefarious explanations. But Schenn, Simmonds, and 2nd is excellent value for a player like Mike Richards... IF you don't feel you are on the cusp of being a contender (which the Flyers gave no sign of being). And once you trade your top goal scorer, it makes even more sense to "go big" and commit to the rebuild.

 

One season removed from a Cup Final, having just finished with a .646 winning % and first in the division "gave no signs" of them being a contender??

 

I'll go ahead and disagree with that.

[AndyS]

Pronger.

 

He made a pretty big difference.  Just saying.

[brelic]

The devil's not only in New Jersey, he's also in the details

 

Yeah, but if you close down a few lanes on the bridge, doesn't that keep him safely in Jersey?
 

[JackStraw]

One season removed from a Cup Final, having just finished with a .646 winning % and first in the division "gave no signs" of them being a contender??

 

I'll go ahead and disagree with that.

 

In my opinion it didn't, because two of the most important players were already past their prime and getting older (Pronger, Kimmo) and the goaltending situation was a mess.

[radoran]

In my opinion it didn't, because two of the most important players were already past their prime and getting older (Pronger, Kimmo) and the goaltending situation was a mess.

I'll speculate that when Ed made his "we're going to solve the goaltending" comment, it wasn't because he thought they "weren't on the cusp of being a contender."

 

I absolutely respect your opinion, but seriously doubt that the Flyers' "braintrust" shared it.

[King Knut]

...But they didn't commit to a rebuild. They signed a "win now" goalie to an ungodly long contract after the started to rebuild.

If they'd committed to a rebuild it would all have made sense. Thy had bob. He'd proven his value by that point but showed that he needed experience and coaching and time. Why's more because of Lavvy playing him against the sabres (pointlessly as goaltending clearly wasn't the problem in that series) they were stuck with him and couldn't send him to the AHL.

To me that says clearly, rebuild rebuild rebuild. But the. Homer goes out and brings in the cosmonaut.

The problem wasn't that the rebuild moves and it probably wasn't even the win now moves (not alone) It was both concurrently tht made no sense and will end up costing this team 80% of Bryz's contract so he can suck for the oilers instead.

Yeah, except I've never heard anything from any team "source" that suggested that. If the assets changing hands didn't measure up I could see why one might look for more nefarious explanations. But Schenn, Simmonds, and 2nd is excellent value for a player like Mike Richards... IF you don't feel you are on the cusp of being a contender (which the Flyers gave no sign of being). And once you trade your top goal scorer, it makes even more sense to "go big" and commit to the rebuild.

[JackStraw]

I'll speculate that when Ed made his "we're going to solve the goaltending" comment, it wasn't because he thought they "weren't on the cusp of being a contender."

 

I absolutely respect your opinion, but seriously doubt that the Flyers' "braintrust" shared it.

 

Well, to me that illustrates a lack of clear direction on the part of management. Like I said, if you believe you're on the cusp of being a contender you don't trade your two top players for kids and draft picks. You just don't. And to me the NINE YEAR CONTRACT for the "goaltending solution" suggests that they realized that it would take some time to get back to where they had been a couple years earlier.

[JackStraw]

But they didn't commit to a rebuild. They signed a "win now" goalie to an ungodly long contract after the started to rebuild.

 

See my post to rad that follows yours. Trading away your two best players (ok, two best forwards at least) for prospects and picks is rebuilding any way you look at it. Doesn't mean other stupid things can't happen.

[Lindbergh31]

@murraycraven

 

I think a lot of Philly fans were hoping that Luke Schenn would grow into an Adam Foote type defenseman because Foote wasn't a real strong skater but a great stay-home defenseman.  As for the Richards/Carter trades, I still believe that Carter was traded to free up cap space to sign Bryzgalov but Richards was traded because he was groomed to be the captain and face of the franchise yet he didn't fulfil the off-ice stuff that a Flyers captain should do. He would have issues with the media and all of this stuff didn't sit well with old man Snider.

Edited January 16, 2014 by Lindbergh31

[JackStraw]

Supposing (and I admit this is a pretty stupid argument) that on the day the Flyers traded CarterandRichards the Hawks had traded Toews and Kane and gotten the same return the Flyers got. Does anyone actually think that the Hawks would have done that to improve their chances of winning another Cup the following year? Would anyone argue that was not at least a partial rebuilding?

[radoran]

Well, to me that illustrates a lack of clear direction on the part of management. Like I said, if you believe you're on the cusp of being a contender you don't trade your two top players for kids and draft picks. You just don't. And to me the NINE YEAR CONTRACT for the "goaltending solution" suggests that they realized that it would take some time to get back to where they had been a couple years earlier.

 

I think the nine-year contract was part and parcel of the team's obvious attempts at circumvention of the cap. Just like the Briere, Richards, Crater and Pronger deals before that. It's not like they don't have the track record.

 

I, for one, never expected Bryz to play out that contract. I was on record at the time saying he'd go back to the KHL before playing out the $2.25M and $1.25M years on the deal. It was the $10M, $6.5M, $8M, $6M, $6M years that were the operative and important years on the deal (two more at $5.5M after that) and those were the years that the team - which "doesn't rebuild, it reloads" - expected to be a contender.

 

Quite frankly, I have no problem whatsoever believing that the Flyers' "braintrust" believed they could just plug in the new assets and continue to "compete for the Stanley Cup" tickitiboo.