Brad Richards was in the bowels of the Nassau Coliseum yesterday morning, and he very uneventfully walked from one side of the hallway to the other.
The Rangers’ star center wasn’t smiling, but he was sincerely appreciative of the fact that he was upright, that he was putting one foot in front of the other, and that each morning that he wakes up, he’s thinking if this is the day he could return to the ice.
It was just four days prior that he found himself squirming on the frozen floor of the Garden, writhing in pain after the Sabres’ serial hitman Patrick Kaleta had driven him headfirst into the sideboards.
“I don’t know where you want to start with how bad it could have been,” Richards said before the team’s overtime win against the Islanders, the second in a row he missed. “Overall I’m standing here talking about trying to play right now, and that’s a few days after. So I’m pretty fortunate, I think.”
Kaleta got a five-game suspension for the hit, a term that was predicated on the fact that Richards returned to the game and seemed to be OK. League disciplinarian Brendan Shanahan assumed that Richards had regained at least somewhat good health in judging his punishment, all before it was known Richards will miss at least two games.
“I don’t know what’s appropriate,” Richards said of the suspension. “I just hope that someone doesn’t have to have a broken neck and get carried off in a stretcher for that to sink in.”
That’s exactly what happened in the Swiss league recently, when a man named Ronny Keller, a defenseman for the team Olten, was pushed from behind chasing a puck in his own zone. He was shoved by Stefan Schnyder, a player for Langenthal, and crashed into the boards with horrifying power.
According to the AP, Swiss Paraplegic Centre doctor Michael Baumberger said Keller sustained “permanent spinal paralysis” due to the damage to his fourth thoracic vertebra. Keller did not suffer any brain or head injuries, and Schnyder can not play for an indefinite period of time as he is investigated by the police and by the league.
The third career suspension of Kaleta will be over on March 17 in Washington against the Capitals, five days after the Rangers are in Buffalo. He forfeited $76,219.25 of salary.
“You learn that in Pee Wee, that when you see someone’s numbers, you just don’t do that,” Richards said. “Hopefully something worse doesn’t have to happen, but we have to make a point on that.”
The good news is that Richards inferred he is not dealing with a concussion, but that “the neck and back are a little locked up.” He said he doesn’t know when he might be able to return, but he evaluates his health every morning.
“It’s not a long-term thing,” he said. “I went in pretty hard. I just have to let the body regroup a little bit.”
Before he went out, Richards was playing some of his best hockey of this season. Teaming with Rick Nash and Carl Hagelin on the top line, the group began to gel and the team began to win again.
“Better frame of mind, clearer, and starting to feel good,” is how Richards described it. “Obviously Nasher came back, playing with Hags and him, I felt like we were starting to do something. But that’s the way it goes.”
If Richards can go tonight against the Senators at the Garden, it would be a surprise. The goal for him is still a ways off, to have his game going in the spring with the Stanley Cup on the line.
“Each day I wake up hoping I can go out and do something,” Richards said, “but there’s no sense making it go backwards or not being able to help the team.”
bcyrgalis@nypost.com