Now that Brad Richards has secured a salary of around $6.5 million per year (per annum) for the New York Rangers I thought it might be fun to see what that gets you these days in the NHL. As an added bonus I will try to quantify the salary per points, so I will only use scoring forwards in this piece with their last season salaries.

Buffalo – Brad Boyes - $4.5 million last season. Last year he had 55 points in 83 games last year (per hockeydb and cap geek). Roughly 82,000 a point.

Washington – In an off year, Nicklas Backstrom - $6 million - was paid roughly 92,000 per point.
Kings – Anze Kopitar - $6 million – had 73 points, was paid roughly 82,000 per point.
Dallas – Brad Richards - $7.8 million – had 77 points, was paid roughly $101 per point, the worst on the list.

Now what if you get 77 points out of him at $6.5 million (which he will make next year), then you are paying him $84,000 per point, and that seems to be a fair rate so that’s what he needs to do next year for the Rangers to get fair market value out of him. Since 2007 Richards has only reached the 77 point mark twice. If you want to say he contributes in other ways, fine, but you are paying for that. He has averaged 72 games a year in that span, and he has had concussion problems and he is 31, and while he has been almost a point-per-game in the playoffs, he hasn’t been in the playoffs the past three years. In 2008 he had 15 points in 18 games for the Dallas Stars.

Will he make Marian Gaborik better? Maybe, but it seems like Gaborik’s shot is a bit slower than it used to be, not by much, but enough to let goalies catch up to him and make saves. Does he win face-offs (at home - 49.91%, on the road – 51.40%)? He only had three game-winning goals all of last season and the most he’s ever had in his career has been 6. He’s a -72 career, and we know he’s not known for his defense. Last year he had 29 power-play points, down from 40 the year before, blame him, or the team? He only registered 20 hits last year.

On the plus side he was 9th in the league in goals created (.40 per game).

Hockey Reference has Keith Primeau ranking ahead of him all-time so far. Fair? The Rangers landed the biggest fish this off-season; does that mean he was the best for their team? Only time will tell.