1) With unrestricted free agency a mere 1 week away and the Dallas Stars resigned to lose center Brad Richards come July st, GM Joe Nieuwendyk has been peddling the center's rights around in an attempt to get something in return before he's free to go. Teams would then have an exclusive period of time to court and before the frenzy that will undoubtedly happen next week.
2) Would seem to be a strait forward process, no? Would seem so regardless that Richards has a No trade clause on his expiring contract. After all why would a no trade clause be an issue if the player won't be actually tied to play for the team for who he is traded, right? WRONG! Apparently, and for no reason we can fathom, Brad Richards has told the Dallas Stars that he is NOT going to waive his NTC and allow them to deal his rights before the July 1st UFA period commences. In essence screwing the Stars from getting at least a tangible asset in return. Can't understand why unless there is bad blood between Richards and management? Regardless its still beyond crass to do this. If we were a team thinking of signing him we would have second thoughts about it. Certainly any new team should not even consider giving the jerk a new No Trade Clause. Our opinion of Brad Richards unless/until we are told/given new information is that he's a douche bag!
4 comments:
Isn't his right to say no under his NTC? Perhaps his train of thought is that he doesn't want to have the team he is heading to give up assets that would help them be a better team with him there.
He is simply asking the Stars to honour the terms of the contract just like the Stars asked him to honour his terms...
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1) 5hole: WE agree with you that Richards ha severy right to invoke his NTC. That said we also agree with FR2 that there is no real reason he could see why he would invoke it now
2) Your assertion that he doesn't want to weaken his 'new team' would be a bad precident for players to take with regard to waiving a NTC. WE also doubt its the reason
Interesting take.
One must remember that Dallas told Richards they were not going to resign him or even make an offer to him. Richards never said he didn't want to stay in Dallas.
I also heard that he told a radio station in Dallas that he wants to explore what opportunities are out there and didn't want a team giving up something when he didn't know if he would sign there. He didn't think it would be right for a team to give up a draft pick and then have him walk away.
I think the NHL needs to address this in its next CBA. It would be a simple tinker-just have NTC and NMC terminate at the end of the final game of the season of the final year of the contract.
WE like your new CBA idea 5-hole! makes too much sense to be implimented ofcourse LOL
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