Simon Gagne played in only 25 games during the 2007-2008 season. He suffered a concussion due to a vicious hit from Jay Bouwmeester of the Florida Panthers on October 24th, 2007. Gagne tried to come back a couple of times, stating “I was maybe not 100 per cent but I thought I’ll play a couple of games and everything will be fine.”  He was not fine, and finally the Flyers had to put him on the injured reserve list on February 20th, 2008.

 Fast-forward to December 30th, 2008 at Philips Arena in Vancouver. Fifteen seconds into the game and Kevin Bieksa takes a run at Simon Gagne from behind and knocks him out of the game with a shoulder injury. Mike Richards takes exception to this and immediately goes after Bieksa, drops the gloves and…gets his butt whooped.

There are many things going on here, and they are all about the code. When someone hits one of your superstars from behind with a borderline cheap shot (no call on the hit, no suspension after), you do not sit by and let that go. Especially when that hit results in an injury. Mike Richards, being the captain and locker room leader is not going to let Bieksa get away with that, and so he immediately goes after him to teach him a lesson, stick up for Gagne and establish some momentum in the game. Great move by a great captain, right? Wrong.

 I am the first one to stand up and applaud someone who fights for one of his teammates. There are too many players who are willing to take the dirty hit and then refuse to answer the bell. But there is a much bigger picture here and Mike needs to grow into the veteran voice that Philly is expecting of him.

 First let’s address the prospect of Mike holding Bieksa accountable for the hit. If Mike had actually won the fight, then you could say that Bieksa paid for his actions. But the fact that Bieksa won the fight actually could have turned the momentum away from the Flyers. Think I’m being a little too hard on the captain? According to hockeyfights.com, in his NHL regular season career, Mike Richards has had a total of 16 fights with a record of 5-10-1 and he is 0-3 this season. Not exactly a record to strike fear into one’s heart.

 Secondly let’s look at the argument that he wanted to swing the momentum into Philly’s favor. You are fifteen seconds into the game! There IS no momentum at that point. All he needed to do was to wait for his chance to lay the big hit on Bieksa. I guarantee you that he would not have been the only one to look for him along the boards, either. It also would only have been a couple of shifts before John Stevens tapped Riley Cote on the shoulder and told him to do his job.

 Finally, let’s discuss the different roles that players have on the team. This season, Mike Richards is the second leading scorer for the Flyers with 42 points. He also has the most assists with 27 and is second on the team with a +/- of 16. Bottom line, he is integral in the offensive production of the team. What happens if he gets injured in that fight? Then the Flyers’ two assist leaders, two shorthanded goal leaders and two +/- leaders are out of the lineup in a matter of seconds. Are you beginning to see my point?

 Riley Cote is in the lineup for just this reason. That game, Cote saw a total of 4:02 of ice time. What is worse is that Mike Richards cuffed him when it came to retaliating for the hit. Since Mike challenged him to a fight, and Bieksa answered, win or lose, that’s it. So now we have Gagne injured, Richards in the sin bin for five minutes and Bieksa actually coming out of the whole situation looking ok and smiling for the fans. Hopefully Cote talked to Richards after the game and asked him to leave the fighting to the enforcers.

 Mike Richards is doing everything he needs to do to be one of the best captains that the Flyers have had in their storied history. He’s a strong voice in the locker room, one of the leading scorers and hardest workers on the team, and definitely a tough young player. All he needs to do is recognize his own strengths and the strengths of his teammates and he will be the veteran player that will take the Flyers to the heights that they have aspired to for so long.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, January 6th, 2009 at 9:00 pm and is filed under Hockey, NHL-East, Philadelphia Flyers. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.