Including his two goals Thursday, the center has 10 goals and 16 assists during the past 20 games.
By DAMIAN CRISTODERO
Published February 14, 2004
TAMPA - Did you see him jump?
As Brad Richards' slap shot hit the back of the net during Thursday's game with the Canadiens, the Lightning center left his feet in celebration.
It was a small moment, really; notable because Richards usually celebrates goals like he celebrates finishing a book. The symbolism, though, was enormous.
The game was frustrating. Richards hit a post, missed an empty net and hit a crossbar. So when he blasted the puck past Montreal's Jose Theodore to tie the score at 3 during Tampa Bay's 5-3 victory, "It was like, "Finally,"' he said.
Big picture.
Richards finally is playing his game, scoring important goals and helping others do the same. And he has finally, definitively put behind him a 22-game stretch from Oct.30 through Dec.16 in which he scored one goal.
"It was miserable," Richards said Friday. "It was probably the worst month and a half of my NHL career. I wasn't in my first year in the NHL. It's my fourth. I'm expected to do more than that."
An eight-game stretch from Dec.18 through Jan.2 provided a three-goal tease. The past 20 games reestablished Richards as an offensive force.
The native of Prince Edward Island had 10 goals and 16 assists during that stretch and at least one goal in his past three games to tie a career best.
"You always feel you can do more," Richards said. "If I can stay at this level and maybe get a little better, that's my biggest hope. I don't want to fall back into that bad month."
For Richards, the difference between a bad month and a good one was a matter of a few steps. By simply moving without the puck, he has found open areas to line up his shot.
Add slap and wrist shots improving through practice, strength training and studying the nuances of goal scorers such as Joe Sakic and Brett Hull, and you can see the potential for, say, a 30-goal season.
"I watched him score that goal (against the Canadiens), and he just buries it," coach John Tortorella said. "And he hides his wrist shot very well, too. It's something that's not talked about much because everybody sees his passing ability and how he sees the ice, but he has a very underrated shot."
"Getting the puck is the big difference," said Richards, who has 16 goals, one fewer than last season, and 47 points. "I've been getting pucks and causing turnovers, creating chances like that. When you do that, you can hold on to the puck more. That's not always why you score a goal, but you create more.
"And it's not just goals. You might create a chance for somebody else, and you might get a rebound. Who knows? Good things will happen."
It is a profound change in mind-set.
"I was scared to hold the puck sometimes," Richards said of his slump. "I really didn't want it. I thought I wanted it."
"I think he was one of the guys that we felt was just leaning on, "I'm getting my chances, but it's not going in,"' Tortorella said. "It's easy to say that for a week, but as prolonged as it was going ... you need to step up and bring it to another level."
It would have been easy for Richards to hang his head after Thursday's missed chances. He even had an apparent goal disallowed when a video review showed his crossbar shot did not cross the goal line.
"But I still had that feeling that there was still some game left," he said. "You're playing well, and you'll get another chance."
He got two, tying the score with 6:23 left and scoring an empty-netter for his first multigoal game since March 1, 2002.
"That has happened so many times in the past month, where I've noticed I'm getting chances right off the hop and just have that feeling," Richards said. "Two months ago, I'd give anything for one chance."
As for his celebratory hop, which likely won't make a repeat appearance tonight against the Panthers at the St. Pete Times Forum ...
"It was probably my first celebration in four years," Richards said.
