After scoring nine game-winning goals for the New York Rangers in the 2011-12 season, Brad Richards fell out of favor with former head coach John Tortorella in the 2013 lockout-shortened season.
Things went so south for Richards under Tortorella last season that he was demoted to fourth-line status and even became a healthy scratch on a few occasions in the 2013 Eastern Conference Semifinals against the Boston Bruins.
This despite scoring 11 goals and 23 assists for 34 points in 46 regular-season games played.
It wasn't that his numbers were particularly unimpressive, it was that he just seemed deflated—a shell of his former self. Maybe the eventual fallout in the postseason with Tortorella, his former head coach when the two won the Stanley Cup in Tampa Bay together, was in the works for a long time.
With the new collective bargaining agreement's introduction of compliance buyouts (two per team) as a way to meet a reduced salary cap of $64.3 million for the 2013-14 season, many had written Richards off as an inevitable buyout in the summer of 2013.
That day never came, and Richards reported to training camp aft ...
Read Full Article at Bleacher Report - NHL
Article written by Rob Waters
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January 13th, 2014 by Rob Waters Leave a reply »
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