Story questions partying habits of new King Mike Richards

This article was originally on a blog post platform and may be missing photos, graphics or links. See About archive blog posts.

There’s an interesting piece in the Philadelphia Daily News that quotes two unnamed members of the Philadelphia Flyers about the hard-partying ways of center Mike Richards, who was traded to the Kings last month for Brayden Schenn and Wayne Simmonds.

According to the unidentified Flyers, Richards and then-Flyers teammate Jeff Carter — who was later traded to Columbus — were exiled in part because they refused to sign their names on a board in the locker room and pledge to refrain from drinking for a month -- or, as they called it, the Dry Island.

Not every player on the team took that pledge, which is acknowledged by General Manager Paul Holmgren. But the partying habits of Richards and Carter were said to be of concern to those unidentified teammates and supposedly contributed to management’s decision to trade them.

Here’s the original story and here’s another view, with some comments from Coach Peter Laviolette to a Philadelphia radio station.

Kings General Manager Dean Lombardi didn’t respond to a request for a comment on the Daily News story. Richards is scheduled to be in Los Angeles for an introductory news conference Wednesday, and it will be interesting to see how he responds to this.

ALSO:

Stadium proponets hope NFL turns its attention to L.A.

Pacific 12 Conference likes its show despite holes in the marquee

-- Helene Elliott