The NHL draft is now over which means that it is time for the offseason to kick into high gear with free agency starting. One team we had to keep an eye on was the Los Angeles Kings and the issues between them and forward Mike Richards. It looks like they solved it as the team terminated Richards contract due to a material breach in his contract. He had five years and $22 million left on his current deal that he signed with the Philadelphia Flyers. He had a cap hit of $5.75 dollars.
Last season for the Kings Richards scored five goals, produced 11 assists and produced a plus-minus of minus 10, playing in 53 games for the Kings. Ever since coming to the Kings, via trade from Flyers, Richards has been nothing but a big disappointment as he hasn't lived up the numbers that he put up in Philadelphia. Los Angeles got him hoping he would be a great top-two center but they were wrong. Instead, he turned out to be nothing but a player with a big salary cap that did not produce for the team.
Even though Richards has been a bust with the Kings, there is still some value for him. He can be a good second line center, he can pass the puck well leading to assists, he can be good on the power play and on the penalty kill. Put him in the right system and the right minutes he can be a good player for a club. Maybe getting out of Los Angeles will be turn things around for him.
On the Kings side of things they finally get rid of Richards huge salary cap off of the books. Now they have money to improve the team this offseason, where with Richards still on the books it would've been tight spot salary cap wise. The team tried finding a trading partner for him but his salary cap was a big problem for teams that wanted to trade for him.
On the Richards side of things he will have to prove to other teams that he can still make an impact in the league. He will be getting a big pay cut from his last contract but it will be worth it. He should be all about taking a low money deal from a team that is willing to take a chance on him because he has to prove his worth at this point in time.
One question that almost every team that is interested in Richards will be asking is what did he do to breach his contract? The teams will most likely talk to the Kings to get more information on Richards and what happened with them, but once that is all settled it will be no problem for Richards to sign with another team. As long as the team does not have a problem with what happened in Los Angeles plenty of teams should be interested in him.
The Kings released this statement today, “The Los Angeles Kings today have exercised the team's right to terminate the contract of Mike Richards for a material breach of the requirements of his Standard Player's Contract. We are not prepared to provide any more detail or to discuss the underlying grounds for the contract termination at this time.”