Carter and Richards Play for the Cup

It is a perfect nightmare for many Flyers fans to see players that the Flyers happily casted off have a chance to win the cup elsewhere just one year later.  Rationally, the fact that Richards and Carter ended up in the same place and now may win the cup before the Flyers says absolutely nothing at all about the wisdom of the big trades last summer, however.

I think some Flyers fans are getting carried away in criticizing Richards and Carter, acting as if they were a cancer on the team.  That is gossip, conjecture, and revisionist history run amok.  It seems to me that the Carter trade was a simple hockey trade, and a very good one at that.  The Richards trade was a little less straightforward, but seemed to be a personality makeover to team leadership.  That trade's success remains  less clear.

Before saying anything else, you need to take a step back and look at how Carter and Richards actually performed this season.
Carter: 55gp (for CLB and LA), 21 goals, 13 assists, -13.
Richards: 74 gp, 18 goals, 26 assists, +3

34 and 44 points?  Flyers fans would be going batshit crazy if those players stayed on the Flyers squad this year and produced those numbers.

So what about the playoffs?
Carter: 14gp, 4 goals, 5 assists, +2
Richards: 14gp, 4 goals, 7 assists, +3

I think the Kings are pretty satisfied with what they are getting from Richards these playoffs.  He's playing in a mostly defensive role, and chipping in some points along the way.  This is more or less what he did with the Flyers, and his points/game is nearly identical as his time in Philly (with Flyers 50/63=0.794, with Kings 11/14=0.786).

Regarding Carter, a big knock on him in Philly were his playoff disappearances (21/47=0.447 points/game).  His 9 points in the 14 games seem to imply a different level in performance, though that number is inflated by a relatively unimpressive hat track.  Take away that one game, and he has a line of 1 goal, 5 assists in the 13 games (0.462 points/game).  He has actually gone pointless in 9 of 14 playoff games.  Again, this is pretty much a repeat of his playoff MO in Philly for which he was heavily criticized.

I think the takeaway here is that there's no reason to get bent out of shape that the Richards and Carter have a chance to win it all elsewhere so soon after the trade.  They didn't destroy the franchise here, and they haven't magically become brave playoff heroes elsewhere.

Flyers fans are free to root for or against them in the finals, but bitterness towards the pair on the grounds that they sabotaged the Flyers and ran off to play better in another city, isn't really justified.  I'm still happy with the trades, as I was last summer.