Will Richards as a Ranger end the Broadway Blues?

Sources close to TBC have confirmed that New York will be the future home of prized free agent Brad Richards. NHL free agency starts Friday and the Rangers are expected to make a run at the 31-year-old center. We are told that it is almost guaranteed the Rangers will sign Richards, at a deal reportedly around 8 years and anywhere between $50 to $55 million. Now, you may be thinking to yourself, who the hell are these so-called sources? To you, our sources could be anyone from my little brother to a guy named Hank in a yellow poncho. But let me assuage any scepticism you may have by saying this particular source happens to have close ties with Rangers bench boss John Tortorella. And apparently, for months now, Torts has been steadfast in saying that Richards will be a member of the Broadway Blueshirts this upcoming season.

Of course, this isn’t exactly an earth-shattering revelation. New York has long been considered the future home for Richards, the lone star of what is a particularly shallow NHL free agency class.  The two other top suitors for Richards are considered to be the Philadelphia Flyers and Tampa Bay Lightning, Richards’ former squad. It is unlikely the Flyers will make any major moves in free agency after last weeks’ flurry of personnel changes that saw captain Mike Richards shipped to Los Angeles and star winger Jeff Carter sent to Columbus, while goaltender Ilya Bryzgalov signed a mega-deal with Philly worth $51 million over nine-years. As for Tampa, it seems as though GM Stevie Yzerman will not be able to afford the former Lightning assistant captain, who was a member of their 2004 Stanley Cup winning squad. It has been rumored that Richards would be willing to take a discount to suit up for his former team, but looking at the numbers it still seems as though the Lightning don’t have the cashola to sign the prized pivot, especially considering their star player Steven Stamkos is a Restricted Free Agent and is due a monumental raise. So that leaves the Rangers. Now, who knows if a team will enter the mix come Friday when the free agent market opens, but Broadway remains the likely destination for the Dallas Stars star. Richards has a close relationship with Tortorella, who was the coach of Tampa’s 2004 Cup-winning team, and Rangers GM Glen Sather has a penchant for clearing up cap space to give mega-millions to high prized free agents. The question that remains is whether this is the right play for the Rangers?

If we take a look at recent history, you can see that Sather does not have the greatest track record when it comes to free agent signings. During the summer of 2007, the Rangers made headlines by signing the two top players of that year’s free agency class, Scott Gomez and Chris Drury. Sather threw a combined $86 million at Drury and Gomez, and neither player will be on next years’ roster. Gomez was traded to Montreal in the summer of 2009, and the Rangers are in the process of buying out Drury’s contract, presumably to make room (both on the depth chart and on the books) for Richards. Furthermore, Rangers fans certainly will never forget the six-year, $39 million deal that Sather gave Wade Redden in 2008 (who is now playing in the minors) or the five-year, $45 million deal Bobby Holik inked with the Blueshirts in 2000 (Holik put up a total of 91 points in 146 games for New York). Thus, any Rangers fan must take the Richards signing with a grain of salt (or maybe a bit more of a grain). Richards does have the potential to be a huge part of the Rangers game plan. The Rangers desperately need a first line center to complement star winger Marian Gaborik. Furthermore, they have been looking for a point man on their power play for years now, and Richards could be the answer in this regard as well. Richards had 28 goals and 49 assists in 72 games last season, with 7 goals and 22 assists coming on the power play. But at the same time, he is 31 years old and is coming off a season in which he missed 10 games due to a concussion. All reports indicate Richards is fully recovered—he did play in the final 16 games of the season—but given the Sidney Crosby saga that has dominated NHL news recently, you really never know when it comes to concussions. It isn’t at all out of the realm of possibility that one big hit or awkward fall into the boards could send Richards spiralling down a Sidney Crosby-like path.

So, is it really worth it for the Blueshirts to throw gorilla money at a 31 year-old, concussion prone player who will give them 70-80 points a season? I really don’t think so. I’m not sure if its the curse of the Rangers or the curse of Sather, but almost every big free agent in recent years that has changed their address to Madison Square Garden has been a bust. Drury never even came close to replicating what he was able to do in Buffalo, Gomez was unceremoniously shipped north of the border after 2 seasons, and even though Marian Gaborik was spectacular in his first season donning the Broadway Blue, the Rangers failed to make the playoffs. The Rangers may grab the headlines in the summer, but have consistently failed to grab them in the spring, when it matters most. History has repeated itself over and over again when it comes to the Rangers free agent class, and as the old cliché goes, those who ignore history are doomed to repeat it. And all signs point to Sather once again digging his greedy old hands into James Dolan’s bloated pockets and writing Brad Richards a big, fat check. Trust me, I am a diehard Rangers fan through and through. And I really do hope Richards, and, maybe for once, Sather will prove me wrong. But as a student of history, I’m just not so sure they will.