Richards and Carter trades boiled down to cold, hard numbers

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Believe it or not, Saturday marks the first time the Philadelphia Flyers go head-to-head versus Mike Richards and Jeff Carter at the same time, a tilt nearly two years in the making. This is also an occasion to rehash the debate over whether the organization did the right thing in “blowing it up” in 2011.

While Richards and Carter took different paths to the Los Angeles Kings, the fact is they won a Stanley Cup together the ensuing season after they were traded, two short years removed from nearly doing the same in Philly mind you. They’re not necessarily the stars of the show in LA the way they were here, but they accomplished

From the Flyers’ point of view, their roster became both younger and far more productive. In a straight points comparison, the orange and black have actually got more scoring from key components of those deals Jake Voracek (133) and Wayne Simmonds (119) than the Kings have from Richards (111) and Carter (101).

That’s not even accounting for Brayden Schenn and Sean Couturier, two young players who continue to show improvement.

Of course, if we added Richards’ and Carter’s points from all those playoff games LA has been in, the numbers might look a bit different.

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