By now, even casual fans of the NHL have heard about, pored over and discussed at length the issues that former Philadelphia Flyers captain and two-time Stanley Cup-winner with the Los Angeles Kings, Mike Richards, faced and continues to face. A first-round pick, Richards was anointed the puck savior in Philly almost before he'd laced up for his first practice with the Phantoms. Now, a decade later, Richards is on the outside of the league looking in, attempting to deal with an arrest for possession of a controlled substance and staying in shape by skating with the Kitchener Rangers of the OHL, his former junior team.
For Richards' former teammates, it seems his fall from grace still comes with questions.
"I was very shocked because I'm good friends with Mike and still talk to him quite often," former teammate Justin Williams told Sam Carchidi of the Philadelphia Inquirer. "But people aren't going to just voluntarily tell you their issues, and that certainly was the case. He hid a lot. But at the same time, he's still a friend of mine and a guy I'm going to support. He needs help."
The now 30-year-old Richards is currently awaiting a resolution to his current case, wherein he is said to have attempted to cross a U.S.-Canadian border while in possession of illegally obtained painkillers, in the form of a hearing in Emerson, Manitoba on Dec. 8. Richards' two former teams are set to square off in Philadelphia on Tuesday night; only five months after the Kings terminated the veteran center's contract, citing a "material breach."
As Carchidi notes, the concussions that Richards - a player former teammate Patrick Sharp called "a heart-and-soul type" - sustained throughout his professional career could, in some way, be linked to his prescription drug and alcohol abuse. During the early portion of coach Peter Laviolette's tenure with the Flyers, he instituted a no-alcohol for a month policy. Richards, per Carchidi and other reports, refused to comply.
Those issues with self-medication and partying apparently followed Richards to Los Angeles, where his time with the team ended as a "tragedy," with Richards caught in a "destructive spiral," according to Kings GM Dean Lombardi in a statement he provided to the Los Angeles Times.
Per Carchidi, source within the Kings organization suggested that the team knew about Richards' issues when they acquired him in exchange for Brayden Schenn, Wayne Simmonds and a second-round pick. The Flyers vehemently deny that they had any knowledge of such concerns.
Current Flyers GM and former Kings assistant GM Ron Hextall, refused to comment, but said what has been parroted consistently regarding Richards since the news of his arrest first broke.
"I know this: I know Mike Richards is a good kid," Hextall told Carchidi. "I know Mike Richards was a very good hockey player and I know he cared."
