The change in coaching administrations could alter the Rangers’ decision regarding Brad Richards, who still is far more likely to be an amnesty buyout later this month than a candidate for the club’s first-line center slot when camp convenes in September, but who sure has a better shot at Broadway redemption than he did before coach John Tortorella was dismissed on Wednesday.
Not only would tension abate with the hiring of a new boss who most certainly won’t be like the old boss, the next coach all but certainly will be given input into the alternate captain’s immediate future. If it is at all possible, management and ownership would rather defer the decision on a buyout for a year instead of simply sending Richards away after two seasons — and what would amount to more than $44 million of the Garden’s money — of a nine-year deal that won’t expire until after the 2020-21 season.
That’s 2020-21 … seven more seasons … by which time Mark Messier might be a career NHL coach on his third team.
There is, however, the not inconsequential matter of the cap-recapture penalty to ponder if Richards — who has a no-move clause — retires before the end of his contract, under which he is due to earn $1 million in each of his final three years.
The charge, however, would not be as prohibitive as I outlined in this space last Sunday while unwittingly (you bet) using an incorrect formula for Richards and Marian Hossa. I apologize. An executive from an Eastern Conference club (not the Rangers) alerted me this week to my error before sending figures that had been verified by the NHL, as follows:
The Blueshirts would be hit with an annual cap penalty of either $5.664 million or $5.666 million per if Richards were to retire with between one and three years remaining on his deal. The Blackhawks would be charged with annual dead cap space of $4.275 million if Hossa were to retire with between one and four seasons remaining on his contract.
Indeed, if NHL revenue increases annually by a reasonable 5 percent beginning with 2014-15, the cap would be at least $75.69 million for 2018-19, meaning a potential Richards’ penalty would account for no more than just under 7.5 percent of the Rangers’ annual payroll allowance.
It is impossible to know whether Messier or Wayne Gretzky — whose eyes never strayed far from the scene — or Alain Vigneault or Dallas Eakins would argue on behalf of giving the 33-year-old Richards one more shot to help take the Rangers where they thought he could lead the club when he was signed two years ago.
But we do know there is no baggage to influence the decision. And we do know the chance today of Richards returning is certainly higher than it was on Tuesday.
* All quiet from the Legends Division of potential Rangers coaches, but you can bet this about Gretzky and Messier: Neither in the least relishes a public candidacy in which the two men are pit against one another for the job.
More to the point, Gretzky’s interest in returning to a significant role with an NHL team after a self-imposed four-year absence from the scene is as meaningful as his desire to go behind the Rangers’ bench.
* This one is sure hard to believe, but I’ve made a list and I’ve checked it at least twice: No goaltender in NHL history ever has won his first Stanley Cup with his original team later than his sixth season in the league.
Turk Broda was in his sixth year with the Maple Leafs when he won the Cup in 1942, and Tim Thomas was in his sixth year with the Bruins when Boston won it in 2011.
Meaning, of course, that if Henrik Lundqvist, entering his ninth season (ninth season, already!) with the Rangers, wins one in New York, history will be made.
* It is, by the way, impossible to believe Rick Nash meant what he said on breakup day about how he thought his playoff performance was “good.”
Far more likely that No. 61 had already had more than enough of the evaluation process by the time he left his exit interviews to meet with the press.
* There is, by the way, no need for Mike Keenan to ask the pilot to turn around the plane.