TSN: Brad Richards NOT being bought out

[Unpredictable1]

I really want AV to have the same roster going into next year. This helps solidify that and I was also wanting Richards to have next season as a clean slate.

 

[RangerBoy]

To those of you who are worried if he gets hurt next year: we can put him on the LTIR. Yes, he wouldn't able to be amnestied, but we could a regular buyout at a later date.

There's no need to worry about Richards retiring until after the 2016-17 season. If we buy him out the year before that, his cap hit would be $833,333 until 2024. Big whoop. The cap will go up every year, so that will feel less and less of an already small deal it is.

Richards is still on the team. Why is that so hard for you to understand? Long term IR indefinitely is for a career ending injury. Richards suffers a torn labrum and needs surgery. Prevents the buyout. He is ready to play by the fall. Not long term IR. You're going to buy him out later on and take cap hits when the cap hit could have been zero. It will be the same team this season. They will pressed up against the cap.

You're funny. You have an avatar making of Richards facial feature and have him dressed up as a Bugs Bunny . You're a mod and supposed to be the adult in the room. Would you like someone making fun of you? I don't think so.

 

[egelband]

I'm on team Richards now. I want him to come out flying and have an amazing season....
Flame away!

i'm with you. i would have been fine with a buy-out, assuming they'd use the money saved on a useful player. but this is fine too. richards, if he wasn't giving it 100% or somehow just wasn't mentally 'there' last year - will definitely have gotten the picture that his spot's in jeopardy. so i think he'll be better this year. if he really is just simply washed-up, he can be dropped next summer.
and i like your lineup too. looks good. maybe they'll bring up a couple prospects too. looking forward.

 

[mike14]

Richards is still on the team. Why is that so hard for you to understand? Long term IR indefinitely is for a career ending injury. Richards suffers a torn labrum and needs surgery. Prevents the buyout. He is ready to play by the fall. Not long term IR. You're going to buy him out later on and take cap hits when the cap hit could have been zero. It will be the same team this season. They will pressed up against the cap.

You're funny. You have an avatar making of Richards facial feature and have him dressed up as a Bugs Bunny . You're a mod and supposed to be the adult in the room. Would you like someone making fun of you? I don't think so.

LOL, I'm sure Richards is devastated by that avatar.
Are you angry because Brooks got yet another thing wrong?

 

[Baby Punisher]

Sather

 

[LetterJ]

Blob and I told you so,

I think it was too big a cheque for Dolan to write to say good bye to Richards, without another year of productivity. Instead, the NYR run the risk of injury.

If I were Dolan, I do not know what I would do, but I understand the decision.

 

[GAGLine]

To those of you who are worried if he gets hurt next year: we can put him on the LTIR. Yes, he wouldn't able to be amnestied, but we could a regular buyout at a later date.

There's no need to worry about Richards retiring until after the 2016-17 season. If we buy him out the year before that, his cap hit would be $833,333 until 2024. Big whoop. The cap will go up every year, so that will feel less and less of an already small deal it is.

Everything you've written here is 100% wrong.

First, LTIR is for long term injuries during the season. If he has a career ending injury, yeah, we can place him on LTIR every year for the last 6 years of his contract (which still isn't ideal). But he doesn't need a career ending injury. All he needs to do is be injured during the small buyout window in 2014. If he gets hurt next year and needs surgery in the summer, we won't be able to buy him out.

Second, if we give him a regular buyout in 2016, his cap hits for 2017, 2018 and 2019 would be 6.5

 

[Nac Mac Feegle]

Everything you've written here is 100% wrong.

First, LTIR is for long term injuries during the season. If he has a career ending injury, yeah, we can place him on LTIR every year for the last 6 years of his contract (which still isn't ideal). But he doesn't need a career ending injury. All he needs to do is be injured during the small buyout window in 2014. If he gets hurt next year and needs surgery in the summer, we won't be able to buy him out.

Second, if we give him a regular buyout in 2016, his cap hits for 2017, 2018 and 2019 would be 6.5 mil. Capgeek is your friend.

Exactly!

Why in the world would the Rangers do this? Richards has been on a steady decline for a few years now. He is going to be WORSE next year than he was in 2013! And slower!

I'm wondering if the Rangers will even make the playoffs next season at this rate.

 

[NYR Viper]

Richards is still on the team. Why is that so hard for you to understand? Long term IR indefinitely is for a career ending injury. Richards suffers a torn labrum and needs surgery. Prevents the buyout. He is ready to play by the fall. Not long term IR. You're going to buy him out later on and take cap hits when the cap hit could have been zero. It will be the same team this season. They will pressed up against the cap.

You're funny. You have an avatar making of Richards facial feature and have him dressed up as a Bugs Bunny . You're a mod and supposed to be the adult in the room. Would you like someone making fun of you? I don't think so.

RB could the Rangers have a trade in mind where they move Richards for another similar contract that needs to be amnestied but has more dollars left? Weber? Or someone like that.

 

[mike14]

Everything you've written here is 100% wrong.

First, LTIR is for long term injuries during the season. If he has a career ending injury, yeah, we can place him on LTIR every year for the last 6 years of his contract (which still isn't ideal). But he doesn't need a career ending injury. All he needs to do is be injured during the small buyout window in 2014. If he gets hurt next year and needs surgery in the summer, we won't be able to buy him out.

Second, if we give him a regular buyout in 2016, his cap hits for 2017, 2018 and 2019 would be 6.5

Do you (or anyone else) have the actual wording on what constitutes an 'injury' for purposes like this? With buyouts happening directly after the season is finished, it seems likely that most players will have 'aches and pains', how serious does the injury have to be in order to not allow a buyout?

 

[eco's bones]

Lundqvist, Callahan, Girardi, Stralman, Boyle are UFA's next year. Brassard, Del Zotto, Moore, Kreider are RFA's next year. If Richards gets hurt there's a very good possibility it's going to cost us one or two or three of these guys because we'll be stuck with his contract and we'll be less able to compete on the open market for our own guys let alone for other free agents because we just won't have the cap space. So keeping Richards around this year not only means more or less the same lineup as last year--while other teams will be improving--depending on what the cap does it has the potential of ****ing us over next year as well by costing us core players. This is an irresponsible decision made by the Rangers management staff and it's one for which people in the front office should have to walk the plank if it comes back to bite us in the ass. It's a decision that could cost us for several years into the future.

 

[NewLife]

This is just stupid and lazy.

 

[eco's bones]

For those who are worried about him getting hurt next year. If he's struggling at all you stop dressing him by thanksgiving day and he stays in the stands for the rest of the year + the playoffs. You might even want to get someone to walk him up and down the steps--just to make sure he doesn't trip.

This is about the most boneheaded decision our team could make and the right move was an easy one for maybe everyone expect Mr. Dolan. Couldn't he just raise the rates again?

 

[Boom Boom Geoffrion*]

You're funny. You have an avatar making of Richards facial feature and have him dressed up as a Bugs Bunny . You're a mod and supposed to be the adult in the room. Would you like someone making fun of you? I don't think so.

Machinehead won't win it three years in a row with posts like this.

 

[Dalagaze]

Ok, our playoff theme next season DEFINITELY has to be Leave It to Beaver

 

[LaffyTaffyNYR]

The good news... if Richards returns to form, the Rangers center depth actually becomes very damn good with Stepan moving to 2, and Brassard to 3, Boyle to 4.

The bad news.. He gets injured and the team is in deep **** for quite a while unless the cap goes up substantially..

 

[AlternateSideParking]

Richards blamed this year on the lockout. There might me some validity to that. Lots of NHL star players had poor half seasons in 1995 and rebounded with better 1996's.

If Richards has any sense of self-worth, pride, discipline and professionalism, he will show up to camp in the best shape of his life and lead this team the way he was supposed to.

I guess this signals the end of Clowe.

 

[Gardner McKay]

How does having an off year, followed by a decent year, help the Rangers?
This idea of players having off years is really wearing thin. What about showing up every year, every season. Crazy, eh?

So you have never had an extended period of time in your life where you were just "off"? Maybe we should sign you to replace Richards.

 

[wolfgaze]

While I'm really not happy about the gamble/risk involved - there's no denying that this team would have poor center depth going into next season had he been bought out. If one of Stepan or Brassard suffered an injury next season for any significant period of time, we'd be relying on a Boyle and two rookies (Miller/Lindberg?) to center the remaining 3 lines. That's just awful and it's hard to imagine we could field a competitive team in the absence of any center depth.

 

[silverfish]

In all reality, he's our best option at 3C this off-season. And if (big if) he finds his game again, he can step into the top-6. I'd keep him off PP1 for the time being though, until he proves himself again if he can.

Going to see a lot of new posts in that speculation thread now with Richards having to be plugged back in

 

[LaffyTaffyNYR]

In all reality, he's our best option at 3C this off-season. And if (big if) he finds his game again, he can step into the top-6. I'd keep him off PP1 for the time being though, until he proves himself again if he can.

Going to see a lot of new posts in that speculation thread now with Richards having to be plugged back in

AV will see what he does in camp/pre season, but I believe he will give Richards every chance to earn back the 1c spot. but he will undoubtedly out perform Brassard next year, not sure about Stepan if the step he took this season translates over 82 games.

 

[Nac Mac Feegle]

The good news... if Richards returns to form, the Rangers center depth actually becomes very damn good with Stepan moving to 2, and Brassard to 3, Boyle to 4.

The bad news.. He gets injured and the team is in deep **** for quite a while unless the cap goes up substantially..

Not really.

If the cap goes up, chances are individual salaries will go up by the same token. In 3, 4, 5, years, you'll simply have the next group of RFAs and UFAs to sign. Having any amount of cap room eaten up by any player who is retired will hurt, no matter how much the cap increases. You won't get guys to accept 2013 value in 2017. By then basic 4th liner could well be 2.5 million in the marketplace for all we know.

 

[Rangers ftw]

Just for the sake of it, Richards with 80 pts next season. Book it!

 

[azrok22]

While I'm really not happy about the gamble/risk involved - there's no denying that this team would have poor center depth going into next season had he been bought out. If one of Stepan or Brassard suffered an injury next season for any significant period of time, we'd be relying on a Boyle and two rookies (Miller/Lindberg?) to center the remaining 3 lines. That's just awful and it's hard to imagine we could field a competitive team in the absence of any center depth.

No team is going to be immune to injuries to key players dismantling the lineup. Also they would've had another $6.7m to shore up the third line center spot and top six wing. Unless you're moving Richards/Brassard to LW, bringing him back just doesn't seem to be in line with what AV wants from his lines.

If you're doing an offense, offense, checking, energy split of the lines, you're basically stuck doing along the following:

Kreider - Stepan - Nash (offense)
Richards/Brassard - Brassard/Richards - MZA (offense)
Hagelin - Boyle/Lindberg/Miller/UFA - Callahan (checking)
Asham - Boyle/UFA - Dorsett (energy)
Pyatt

EDIT: And really, I don't think we have the money to even afford a good third line center at this point, so I think Boyle on the third line with Lapierre or another 4th line center being brought in is more likely if Lindberg/Miller are not ready.

 

[GAGLine]

Do you (or anyone else) have the actual wording on what constitutes an 'injury' for purposes like this? With buyouts happening directly after the season is finished, it seems likely that most players will have 'aches and pains', how serious does the injury have to be in order to not allow a buyout?

I don't, but I can give you plenty of example of players who are injured who wouldn't be eligible for a buyout.

Heatley
Havlat
Hossa
Bergeron
Samuelsson
Gaborik
Callahan
Hagelin
Del Zotto
Staal

That's just off the top of my head. I'm sure there are lot of other players around the league who needed one surgery or another after the season. 3 of the players on this list (Heatley, Havlat, Samuelsson) would be bought out this summer if they were healthy, but their teams are stuck with them.