There was his chance, sitting open at the left circle, waiting for the puck, and when it came, Brad Richards fired it quickly only to watch it get swallowed up in Martin Brodeur’s stacked pads.
It was the third period of the last game of the Rangers season, Game 6 of the Eastern Conference finals against the Devils, Friday night at Prudential Center. It was tied 2-2 with the Rangers on the power play. Richards was the No. 1 import to Madison Square Garden this season, signing a nine-year, $60 million free-agent contract and earning himself, through feats of big-game heroics that overshadowed his inconsistencies, the moniker “Broadway Brad.”
“Bang-bang play, it’s a good save,” Richards said after his team lost, 3-2 in overtime to a goal by Devils rookie Adam Henrique. “I’d do it again the same way. He squeezed it between his legs.”
When Richards was asked if he could describe the feeling of defeat, having to stand in front of the cameras and with tape recorders in his face, he simply said, “No. Not really.”
Richards came to the Rangers to start this season after 10 with the Lightning and Stars. He had won a Stanley Cup with coach John Tortorella in Tampa Bay in 2004, and was supposed to be the Rangers’ big-time pivot who could center Marian Gaborik and form a top line that few could match.
It didn’t exactly turn out like that. Gaborik and Richards struggled to find consistent chemistry, and although the two had solid numbers in the regular season, come the postseason — the time their real value was supposed to show — both had difficulty finding their game.
“We had our fair share of opportunities,” Richards said. “It’s a fine line to get this far. That’s what it is, it’s a bounce here or there.”
The 32-year-old Richards led the Rangers with 15 points (six goals, nine assists) in 20 postseason games. He did have his fair share of big plays, the biggest being the goal he scored with 7.6 seconds remaining in regulation in Game 5 in the second round against the Capitals, a game the Rangers won in overtime.
Asked about what he saw in the moments before his season ended, Richards said, “A team that keeps on battling.” The same can be said for him.
Gaborik, who led the Rangers in the regular season with 41 goals, had just five goals in the playoffs. His only score in the Devils series was in Game 5, when he took advantage of a Brodeur stick-handling mishap and banked one in from a sharp angle.
“We knew who we were facing,” Gaborik said in all reverence to the Devils, who shut him down by being physical and taking away his time and space, much the same way the Senators and Capitals did in the first two rounds. “I think the last two games we were way better … it just wasn’t enough.”
Gaborik came to the Rangers as a free agent before last season, signing a five-year, $37.5 million contract. Now, with Richards to help carry the offensive load, the 30-year-old Slovakian is hoping to make progress as this team moves forward.
“It’s was a great run,” Gaborik said. “Everybody, even experienced guys and young guys, learned a lesson. Every chance we get you have to take advantage of it, and it’s too bad it didn’t work out this time.”