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QUICK HITS: AUGUST 28, 2017
1) The 2017 NHLPA Rookie Showcase is on Monday at Mattamy Athletic Centre in Toronto. Flyers left wing prospect Oskar Lindblom and defense prospect Philippe Myers are among the participants.
2) Champions Hockey League: Flyers goaltending prospect Felix Sandström breezed to an easy shutout as his Brynäs IF Gävle (SHL) team destroyed Polish club ComArch Krakow, 8-0, in Gävle on Sunday. There was a 73-27 shot attempt disparity in the game, and Sandström was only called upon to make 13 saves. Very few were more than routine saves.
3) Led by Flyers Hall of Fame left winger Brian Propp, six former Flyers players will be taking part in the 2017 WCRE Celebrity Charity Hockey Event at the Skate Zone in Voorhees on Sept. 16 at 5:00 p.m. EDT. Other participants include Chris Therien, Kjell Samuelsson, Todd Fedoruk, Doug Crossman and Andre Faust. Kerry Fraser will be the guest referee, while Lou Nolan will handle public address duties. Twenty-eight business leaders from the region will also be donning the skates to play in the benefit game.
Tickets cost $40 for adults and $20 for children for the game plus a buffet dinner and drinks. Game tickets are $10. Proceeds benefit the WCRE Foundation, which supports Alzheimer’s Association Delaware Valley, CARES Institute at Rowan University, the American Cancer Society, the YMCA of Burlington & Camden Counties, Samaritan Healthcare & Hospice and the Jewish Federation of Southern New Jersey.
4) August 28 in Flyers History: On this day in 1989, the Flyers acquired the rights to promising young Czech defenseman Jiri Latal from the Toronto Maple Leafs in exchange for a 1991 seventh round pick. The Flyers subsequently reacquired the pick in the Mark Laforest trade and used it on the selection of Russian forward Andrei Lomakin.
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FLYERS TOP 25 IN THE LAST 25 YEARS: MIKE RICHARDS
For a few years, former Flyers captain Mike Richards seemed destined to go down in team annals in the same tradition as Bob Clarke and Dave Poulin. A fearsome competitor who played a complete game with and without the puck, Richards for a time epitomized grit and hard-nosed play combined with offensive prowess.
Richards was never the biggest, strongest or fastest player on the ice, nor an especially well-conditioned athlete by modern-day NHL standards. He didn't have the heaviest shot, either. What he had in spades was a fiercely competitive drive to win, outstanding two-way hockey sense and the moxie to play a 200-foot game.
Offensively, Richards was an above-average playmaker with excellent hockey sense on both sides of the puck. On the power play, he often manned a point. One of the NHL's top penalty killers, Richards had a knack not only for coming up with crucial puck clears but also for darting into passing lanes and going off on breakaways. Richards scored 23 shorthanded goals for his Flyers career.
In the clinching game of the 2010 Eastern Conference Final against Montreal, Richards turned in one of the most memorable shifts in franchise history. From one end of the ice to the other, Richards hounded the puck and bowled over Montreal players until he finally scored a crucial shorthanded goal.
Drafted by the Flyers with their second of two first-round picks (24th overall) in the 2003 NHL Draft, the former Kitchener Rangers standout won a Calder Cup with the Philadelphia Phantoms in 2005 before graduating to the big team. Richards produced 15 points (seven goals, eight assists) in 14 games during the Calder Cup playoffs.
Richards started out on the fourth line of Ken Hitchcock's 2005-06 Flyers team (11 goals, 34 points in 79 games) but rapidly worked his way up the lineup after his rookie year. By 2007-08, he racked up 75 points in 73 games and was a key facet in the Flyers' run to the Eastern Conference Final one year after the Flyers experienced the worst season in team history.
The best of Richards' six seasons with the Flyers from an individual standpoint was the 2008-09 campaign (30 goals, 50 assists 80 points in 79 games) when he averaged over a point-per-game and was the runner-up for the Selke Trophy as NHL defensive forward of the year, partially on the strength of seven power play goals.
In 2009-10, Richards assembled his second straight 30-plus goal season. He was also outstanding in the 2010 playoffs (seven goals, 23 points in 23 games), helping spur the Flyers to within two wins of the Stanley Cups. He was tenacious during Philly's historic comeback from a three games to zero deficit in the second round against the Boston Bruins and especially dominant in the 2010 Eastern Conference Final series. The Flyers' playoff run in 2010 marked the pinnacle of team history since the 2004-05 lockout.
Richards had a seeming off year in 2010-11, dropping to 23 goals and 66 points before struggling during portions of the Flyers first-round playoff series with the Buffalo Sabres and throughout Boston's four-game sweep of the Flyers in the second round. Although Richards was dogged by off-ice rumors and media reports of strained relations with head coach Peter Laviolette and locker room fissures with veteran teammate Chris Pronger (the latter of which has subsequently been vehemently denied by all parties), few expected that Game 4 of the 2011 Eastern Conference Semifinals would be Richards' final game as a Flyer.
Richards' Philadelphia career officially came to an end on June 23, 2011. He was traded to the Los Angeles Kings in a deal that brought young power forward Wayne Simmonds and the Kings' top forward prospect, Brayden Schenn, to Philadelphia.
Overall, Richards played 453 regular season games as a Flyer, tallying 133 goals (36 power play, 23 shorthanded), 216 assists, 349 points and 397 penalty minutes. In the playoffs, he appeared in 63 games, recording 16 goals, 34 assists, 50 points and 49 penalty minutes.
A two-time winner of the Bobby Clarke Trophy as Flyers' team MVP, Richards played in the 2007-08 NHL All-Star Game in Atlanta, and represented Team Canada at the 2006 IIHF World Championships and the gold-medal winning 2010 Olympics tournament in Vancouver.
In addition to the Calder Cup he won as a Phantom in 2004-05 before he made his NHL debut, Richards won a gold medal with Team Canada at the 2004-05 World Junior Championships. Back in his draft year of 2002-03, he was a major force for the Ontario Hockey League's (OHL) Kitchener Rangers, who won the Memorial Cup.
As a member of the Kings, Richards was part of two Stanley Cup winning teams of 2011-12 and 2013-14 although his performance on the ice declined steadily and never again individually equaled the standards he set in his Flyers years.
The latter portion of Richards' career is a sad story.
Personal problems, a lack of enthusiasm for offseason conditioning and the sheer wear-and-tear of his give-no-quarters style of play reduced the two-time Bobby Clarke Trophy winner from one of the NHL's foremost two-way performers as a Flyer to a fourth-line role player as an LA King by age 28.
Richards' prematurely declining on-ice play, an arrest at the Canadian border for possession of a controlled substance and the termination of his contract by the Kings in 2015 left his playing career in limbo. Richards later signed with the Washington Capitals, dressing in 39 regular season games and 12 playoff matches in 2015-16 as the team's fourth-line center. By age 31, Richards was out of the NHL.
Richards' painful downward spiral does not overshadow his contributions to the Flyers during the latter half of the 2000s. Whether it was delivering a crushing hit, diving to block a shot, taking a hit to make a play, coming up with a key goal or dishing to an open teammate for a prime scoring chance, Richards was the Flyers' number one catalyst in the period between Peter Forsberg's departure and the ascension of Claude Giroux to NHL stardom.
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