Quote:
Originally Posted by Erick Estrada
Mike Richards isn't the first player to sign a big deal and play like crap and he won't be the last but the fact of the matter is that the Rangers had to pay the price to cut bait with Brad Richards who also played like crap on a big deal so regardless of your feelings towards rich players not fulfilling their end of the bargain you can't have some teams getting away with skirting the rules and you cannot terminate a contract due to a player's substance abuse issue. The Kings are certainly trying their hardest here to see if they fan find the loophole but it doesn't make it right and can anyone here say with confidence the Flames if in the same situation would have pulled this? I can confidently say no so there's a matter of class, professionalism, and accountability (they knew the risk when they traded for the contract) that the Kings have chosen to forego in this matter as well.
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You're pretty adamant that the Kings are behaving badly in this situation for someone who doesn't really know what the whole story is. The Kings are being extremely tight lipped. I usually get a good amount of information about what's going on with the Kings from very solid sources. Sometimes I hear about things before they happen, sometimes I hear about it after and get all the interesting details. This is the first time that people who typically hear or sometimes "overhear" everything eventually, have still not heard EVERYTHING about what happened a the border.
But believe this, everything the Kings have done the past two years regarding Richards has been nothing but classy. They have gone above and beyond what should be expected for the situation. A compliance buyout would have been the easy solution to just get rid of him with no penalty. There was no obligation for Lombardi to go to his house and make an agreement and give him another chance. I think its unfair to question the integrity of Dean Lombardi without the whole story. The whole story in this case may never come out. We'll have to wait and see.
In my opinion, if better choices had been made by the player, I don't think the "bad contract" everyone keeps mentioning is actually that bad of a contract. It only looks bad because the player has been unable to perform in a way that makes the contract worthwhile.