Brad Richards committed to turning around New York Rangers for next season -NHL News Update
Dallas Stars faced a major loss during the 2011 National Hockey League (NHL) free agency as their star centre player, Brad Richards, left the team due to problems the franchise was having and joined New York Rangers by signing a huge nine year, $60 million
contract in July.
Having joined the Eastern Conference club, Richards gave up a lot and hopes of gaining back the confidence of his fans, but this time with a Rangers jersey on.
"It's going to be a challenge, for sure. It's going to be something different. I haven't experienced it, but if you want to be a good player or a great player, that's something you should relish. What better place to try to perform every night than Madison
Square Garden? That's a dream come true", Richards said about his decision to move to New York.
It is not only Brad Richards who has high hopes vested with himself joining New York on such a short notice, Rangers players and management have not signed him on to one of the league’s biggest contracts without a reason.
"He's one of the best players in the league", Marian Gaborik said. "You can see he's good at making plays and handling the puck and, also, defensively, he knows where to go".
For a player who has won the Stanley Cup championship, a Conn Smythe Trophy and maintains one of the highest records in the league at the age of 31, Richards still has a lot in him. Joining New York was not is haste as teams like Los Angeles Kings, Calgary
Flames and Toronto Maple Leafs also gave big offers to the player in hope of changing their teams around.
Having scored 77 points (28 goals, 49 assists) last season in 72 games played, Richards is capable of easily outperforming his previous records but it depends highly on the environment and team he is playing for.
Keeping recent preseason matchups in mind, it certainly is not hard to notice that Brad Richards truly does have the capability to take New York into the playoffs next season and make them a top Stanley Cup contending team.
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