Dean Lombardi, GM of the Los Angeles Kings, had a rather eventful Thursday, as he acquired Flyers captain Mike Richards in a trade for Wayne Simmonds, Brayden Schenn and a 2012 second-round pick. It was a lot to give up, but Lombardi deemed Richards worth the price.
Lombardi, a native of Ludlow, Mass., compared it to a major offseason deal that Red Sox fans remember quite well.
"At the trade deadline, there was nobody comparable to Mike Richards available," Lombardi said, according to NHL.com, regarding why he was willing to move a promising young prospect in Schenn. "That's taking nothing away from Brayden. The Flyers got a very good player, who is going to play next year, but we felt that given Mike's age and our need to move to the next level, this is our Adrian Gonzalez, I guess."
Considering that through about half of his first season in a Red Sox uniform, Gonzalez leads the league in batting and RBIs by healthy margins, Lombardi is placing some awfully high expectations on Richards.
The Red Sox gave up top prospect Casey Kelly and highly rated prospects Anthony Rizzo and Reymond Fuentes in order to land Gonzalez.
