IDK if I am an advocate of benching Richards. You need Richards to be your best center. Will benching him send a message? Or will it just mess with his already shaky confidence? It's clear that he isn't bringing his "A" game or even "B" game for that matter, and I'm sure he knows it.
This happened last season too. He was the figure of a lot of criticism. Even then, I'm not sure if it's entirely warranted. He has a bloated contract. But we picked him up more for his big game potential / playoff experience, and he delivered it when it counted for us. If he pots 50 points this season, floats around, and helps us to get to the SCF, I won't care very much. We have to make the playoffs first for that to happen, so he does admittedly have to bring a lot more to the table during this abbreviated reg season.
And to some people benching Gaborik? Are you guys off your rocker? You bench your team leading goal scorer, who has 7 goals on the year, who has been our best forward two out of the last three years, a perennial 40 goal scorer, because he had a bad game? Knee jerk reaction much? Why don't we bench everyone else in the top-6 then? Because none of them brought their "A" game tonight either. Bench Gaborik... Pffftttt...
