LOS ANGELES — Brad Richards has become an essential part of the Rangers’ march through the Eastern Conference playoffs and into this Stanley Cup finals against the Kings.
But with the June 30 deadline looming for general manager Glen Sather to decide whether or not to use the amnesty provision on Richards — thus eliminating the remaining six years at $6.67 million a year in cap charges from the team’s books — his time as a Ranger could be drawing to a close.
“I’ve thought about it a lot,” Sather said during his media day press conference of the impending decision on Richards. “But it’s not something that we’re thinking about right now. We’re focused on what we’re doing, what the team is doing, how we’re going to play, who we’re playing against.
“That decision will come in the summer. It’s like all the decisions … we’ve got lots of free agents to sign. We’re happy with the way it is right now.”
Given where Richards was at the end of last year’s playoffs, when he was a healthy scratch in Games 4 and 5 against the Bruins in the Eastern Conference semifinals and the team actually had to issue a press release to say it didn’t use the amnesty clause on him, Richards’ turnaround over the last 12 months has been quite the dramatic one.
Not only has Richards bounced back with his play on the ice, scoring 20 goals and finishing with 51 points during the regular season before adding five goals and six assists so far during these playoffs, but he’s also ably stepped into the leadership vacancy in the dressing room following the departure of captain Ryan Callahan as part of a package that brought back Martin St. Louis in a deadline day trade.
“You kind of had to recognize that, OK, he’s gone,” Richards said. “You’re going to try to help out Marty as best as possible but obviously there was a void there so you had to make sure that things got done.
“You just kind of recognize it. Dan [Girardi] and Marc [Staal] also had to take on more of a role, and the way our locker room was, the way [coach Alain Vigneault] runs things, [we] just had to make sure things were taken care of.”
In order for Richards to be able to do that, though, he had to get his game back in order after his disastrous lockout-shortened campaign a year ago. But after St. Louis spent the summer working out with his old friend from their Cup winning days with the Lighting, he saw the beginnings of Richards’ turnaround then — even if he didn’t know they would become teammates again a few months later.
“Obviously it was a low point for him,” St. Louis said. “You don’t wish that on anybody, especially a close friend of yours. But you could tell that he was disappointed, but you could tell he wanted to fight to get back his game, I guess, and he worked really hard last summer.
“Things turn pretty quick sometimes, and it’s a short career. It’s long, but it’s short, you know? You don’t have time to feel sorry for yourself. I think that’s the thing I admire about how he did it. He just went to work pretty quick and turned it around. He didn’t waste time feeling sorry for how it all went. That’s the easiest thing to do, to feel sorry. The hardest thing is to get to work.”