One Year Later: Mike Richards, Jeff Carter, and the Stanley Cup

It had to end this way, didn’t it? Almost a year exactly from Deal Day, 6/23/11, the Kings raised the Stanley Cup on 6/11/12. This Kings team was, of course, led in part by Mike Richards, the former Flyers’ captain, and Jeff Carter, who came to Los Angeles via Columbus from Philadelphia. And Monday night, when Richards raised the cup and then handed it off to Carter, they did it not in orange and black, but in black, white, and silver. And that moment crystallized what many will see as the final impact of last June’s trades. But I’m here to tell you differently.

First of all, I know it sucked to watch Richie and Carts holding the cup for someone else. I know. The Kings have been one of my favorite teams to watch besides the Flyers for a couple years now, and Richards was one of my favorite Flyers, so I gravitated to them during the playoffs, watching all of their games. And once the Flyers were eliminated, I secretly hoped the Kings won the Cup. But I didn’t really think about what it would feel like to see the Kings win it until Monday night, when Jeff Carter lifted an absolutely spectacular wrist shot to the top left corner, beating a drifting Marty Brodeur to the stick side to give the Kings a 4-0 lead. That’s when it hit me: Mike Richards and Jeff Carter (and Simon Gagne and Justin Williams) would be raising the Stanley Cup. And the Flyers’ drought would continue. And I felt…well, I can’t really describe it. On one hand, I was happy for them, particularly Richards. They’d both come so close on that magical run to the 2010 Stanley Cup Finals, where they ran into a Chicago Blackhawks team that was simply too good. And I felt that they had been unfairly scapegoated in Philadelphia for the team getting swept by the Bruins in 2011. On the other hand, I was disappointed. Extremely disappointed. I couldn’t help but think back to some of their moments, both good and bad, in a Flyers uniform. “The Shift” by Richards in Game 5 of the 2010 Eastern Conference Finals. ( http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bs_3PeQQUxc ). Jeff Carter blowing a golden chance to give the Flyers the lead with a minute left in Game 6 of the 2010 Stanley Cup Finals. ( http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YNDtCQP4dm0 ). I’d grown up with this team and specifically these two guys leading my Flyers, and now they were gone. And they did with Los Angeles what they could never do here. And the Flyers’ Cup drought reached 38 years and it just wasn’t fair. Sports very rarely make me cry or even come close to it, but I had tears welling in my eyes as Richie passed the Cup to Carts Monday night.

It’s impossible to talk about the departures of Mike Richards and Jeff Carter without mentioning two things: their lengthy contract extensions and desire to remain in Philadelphia, and the off-ice issues. Richards had 9 years left on the 12 year extension he signed in 2007 to make him the Flyers’ captain for his entire career and Carter was entering the first season of his 11 year, $58M extension. Neither wanted to be traded. Both described the trades as “disappointing” and said they felt “betrayed”. It’s not like Richards and Carter wanted out of Philadelphia. So I can’t get mad at them for being traded. The off-ice issues, however, are another story. I’m sure there was exaggeration and hyperbole involved, but the media portrayed the situation as if Richards and Carter had serious substance-abuse problems and specifically went against the requests of management and coaching. However, it didn’t seem to affect their play on the ice at all and Philadelphia has always embraced athletes with off-field concerns (Terrell Owens (initially), Charles Barkley, Allen Iverson, et. All), so that shouldn’t have been as big of a concern as it was made out to be. So it’s clear that the trades came down to the decisions of GM Paul Holmgren and chairman/owner Ed Snider.

Once Holmgren decided to trade a couple of late draft picks and mediocre prospects to the Phoenix Coyotes for the exclusive negotiating

rights with soon-to-be unrestricted free agent goaltender Ilya Bryzgalov, the writing was on the wall. I understood why the move was made: the Flyers were embarrassed by the goalie roulette they played in the postseason, and Bryzgalov would provide stability in net that had been absent for quite some time. But Bryzgalov would command a large salary and a long-term contract, and with Carter and Richards both in similar salary situations, one of them would probably have to go. This, clearly, meant that Carter would be gone. After all, Richards was the captain, and Carter had been a disappointing postseason performer who struggled with injuries despite his high goal output. But never in anyone but Snider and Holmgren’s wildest dreams could one have thought that both Richards AND Carter would be moved. On the same day? Even wilder. Within 15 minutes of each other? Simply unbelievable.

I remember exactly where I was when I heard about the trades. I was driving home with my brother from Rehoboth Beach, Delaware to try to make it back in time for the NBA Draft. I got a text from my friend telling me we traded Richards and Carter. I responded as I think many would have: “Good one.” Amazingly, he was serious. I called him, asking who we got back. I was expecting to hear…I don’t know, people I’d heard of. Instead, I heard silence on the other end of the phone, followed by some stammering: “Umm…we got..uhh..Wayne Simmonds and Brayden Schenn from Los Angeles and Jake Voracek from Columbus. Oh, and Columbus’ 1st and 3rd rounders this year and LA’s 2nd rounder next year. You heard of any of those guys?”No. No, I had not. As soon as I got home I grabbed my laptop and conducted some research. Schenn was the #5 overall pick in 2009, and was coming off a whopping 2 points in 8 games with the Kings that year. Simmonds was a tough winger coming off 30 points in 80 games for LA. Voracek was a winger who hadn’t lived up to his potential in Columbus yet and had just put up 46 points in 80 games for the Blue Jackets. And I knew nothing about the NHL Draft, so those picks didn’t mean much to me. Quite simply, I thought we were fleeced. Twice. And those moves, coupled with the massive 9 year, $51M contract handed to Bryzgalov, meant we were putting an awful lot of faith in the abilities of a goaltender who had played well far away from the spotlight in Phoenix during the regular season, then fallen apart in a sweep by the Detroit Red Wings in the first round of the postseason. That, coupled with the fact that every description of Bryzgalov seemed to include the words “wacky” or “eccentric” and often called him “the enigmatic Russian”, worried me. I was very pessimistic about the upcoming season.

But a funny thing happened: life, and hockey. Nothing worked out as expected with those trades. Sean Couturier fell to the Flyers’ pick at 8 that they had acquired from Columbus. Richards posted the lowest point total of his career in Los Angeles, and the Kings struggled for much of the season. Carter alternated between being injured and complaining in Columbus and was traded to Los Angeles at the deadline. Simmonds doubled his career high in goals. Ilya Bryzgalov struggled for much of the season. And along the way, other hockey stuff happened that would change the fortunes of both teams. The Kings fired their coach and went on a tear under Daryl Sutter. Chris Pronger was lost for the season with a concussion, and the Flyers used the 2nd round pick they acquired from LA as part of a package for Dallas D Nicklas Grossmann. Claude Giroux exploded, turning into a legitimate MVP candidate and one of the 5 best forwards in the league.

That last development might be the most crucial part of the trades. Claude Giroux is now one of the best players in the league. With Richards and Carter here, he was a second-line player. With their departures, he became a top liner, and his play jumped up a notch or seven to reflect that. While Richards and Carter played with Dustin Penner on the second line in Los Angeles behind the top trio of Anze Kopitar, Dustin Brown, and Justin Williams, Giroux was leading the Flyers both by example and vocally, making a case to be named the captain next year if Pronger can’t return from his concussion. We’ll never know whether Giroux would have broken out if Richards and Carter were still here. But we do know that their departures expedited his breakout. And the negative backlash to the trades seems to imply something else: that the Flyers would have won the Cup this year if they had kept Richards and Carter. Nope. Sorry. Not a chance in hell. We would have been starting Bobrovsky in net and Giroux would have been a second-line player. Richards and Carter thrived in LA because they weren’t expected to be the focal points of the offense. They weren’t role players by any stretch of the imagination, but they weren’t stars either. They were part of the supporting cast, second-line guys who helped out LA’s stars like Quick, Doughty, Kopitar, and Brown win the elusive Cup.

So, keeping all of that in mind, let’s take a look at the three trades the Flyers made last offseason, and the one they made in-season: essentially acquiring Bryzgalov from Phoenix, sending Richards to LA, shipping Carter to Columbus, and snatching Grossmann from Dallas. Combined, here’s how the trades look: the Flyers gave up Mike Richards, Jeff Carter, Matt Clackson, Harrison Ruopp, and a 2nd round pick in the 2012 NHL Draft for Ilya Bryzgalov, Brayden Schenn, Wayne Simmonds, Nicklas Grossmann, Sean Couturier, Jake Voracek, and Nick Cousins. I’m attempting to be unbiased, but I take a look at that and it really seems like the Flyers won that trade. Couturier and Schenn are rising stars, Simmonds and Voracek are solid wingers who are getting better, Bryzgalov is an above-average goalie on a lot of nights, albeit an overpaid one, Grossmann is a good shutdown defenseman, and Cousins is a promising prospect. So I know right now it hurts because the Kings won the Cup, and I know the feeling of seeing Richards and Carter holding the Cup feels like a slap in the face, but the trades the Flyers made have put them in a good position for the short term, and a very good position for the long term. And, quite honestly, if Schenn and Couturier develop into the players they’re expected to be and have shown signs of becoming, I’ll be happy that we traded guys who won the Cup this year for players who could easily win multiple Cups in the future. Except this time, they’ll be doing it in the orange and black.