Mike Richards

VANCOUVER - Mike Richards skated onto the ice for the loudest, most intense opening face-off of his life. "It was wild," the Flyers' captain said moments after winning an Olympic gold medal. "It was loud. It was exciting. It was crazy, You couldn't even hear yourself think. You just wanted to get that first [shift] under you, play it safe, and then move on from there. " Richards started the game because he and his line of Jonathan Toews and Rick Nash had emerged as a solid and hardworking example of what Canadian coach Mike Babcock wanted.

EDMONTON - Jeff Carter and Mike Richards are one again. After weeks of rumblings, the Blue Jackets finally declared the Carter Experiment in Columbus a failure on the 8-month anniversary of acquiring him. Blue Jackets general manager Scott Howson sent Carter to Los Angeles, a team desperately in need of scoring, last night in exchange for defenseman Jack Johnson and a conditional first-round pick. The deal hinges upon both players passing a physical exam within 48 hours.

RALEIGH, N.C. - With captain Mike Richards sidelined by the flu, the Flyers needed someone - anyone - to pick up the slack Friday night at the reverberating RBC Center. It came from two unlikely sources: fourth-line center Blair Betts, who scored his first goal in 45 games, and Braydon Coburn, a defenseman who notched his second goal of the season and first in 15 games. But those heroics were overshadowed by Erik Cole's late game-winner, enabling the Carolina Hurricanes to celebrate Rod Brind'Amour Night with an exciting, 3-2 victory.

As he pulled on his gear for his first game as a professional last night at the Wachovia Center, Mike Richards had an understandable case of the jitters. The only way anyone could be sure was because the 20-year-old center, a first-round pick by the Flyers in 2003, said so after he made an impressive debut while helping the Phantoms beat the Wilkes-Barre/Scranton Penguins, 4-1, in the first game of the best-of-seven American Hockey League East Division finals. Richards scored a power-play goal that gave the Phantoms a 2-0 lead early in the second period.

Before a preseason game nearly two weeks ago, Mike Richards skated to center ice, received his C jersey from Flyers chairman Ed Snider, and shook hands with 11 of the team's former captains, who were there for farewell-to-the-Spectrum festivities. Never before had a new Flyers captain received such a welcome. The beloved Spectrum, site of the Flyers' first Stanley Cup championship in 1974 and in the final year of its existence, shook with applause as the fans saluted the symbolic passing of the captain's jersey to the 23-year-old Richards.

1. MICHAEL LEIGHTON, Flyers: Made 30 saves in first start since March. 2. MIKE RICHARDS. Flyers: cored the first goal and assisted on the game-winner. 3. KIMMO TIMONEN, Flyers: The defenseman played more than 28 minutes and was a plus-1.

The Flyers' offseason surgical lineup continues. Mike Richards had successful surgery on his left shoulder yesterday, 2 weeks after having surgery on his right shoulder. Richards, a finalist for the NHL's Selke Trophy awarded to the league's top defensive forward, is expected to require 10 weeks of rehabiliation. The surgeries were to repair torn labrums that Richards played with nearly all of last season. He's the second Flyer to have surgery in the last week. Randy Jones had surgery on his right hip on Wednesday, a followup to the surgery that sidelined him early in the season.

SOMEBODY POKED the bear. Somebody woke up the grizzly that is the Pittsburgh Penguins, and they finally focused the monstrous talent that had slumbered through the first three games - all Flyers wins; all gifts from an indulgent, petty team of pretty scorers. Flyers goalie Ilya Bryzgalov, a Russian, aptly quipped on the eve of the quarterfinal series that, facing the fearsome Penguins attack, he feared nothing . . . except "the bear in the forest. " The bear was sleepwalking for 7 days, losing games, starting fights, getting suspended, losing three games.

IF NOTHING else, on the eve of their latest, doomed playoff adventure, the Flyers can consider themselves heroic for being there. The team excised captain Mike Richards and scoring machine Jeff Carter. At the insistence of its owner, it added talented, quirky franchise goalie Ilya Bryzgalov. It began training camp without Chris Pronger, a 37-year-old defenseman with lingering injury concerns around whom the team was built, then lost him for good in November. It incorporated Jaromir Jagr's comeback - a chancy proposition.

FOR THE FLYERS, 2011 was the year of living incomprehensibly. The season before had ended with a great and unexpected run to the Stanley Cup finals. The beginning of the next season had been a reaffirmation of that run, and of the team's seeming new stature. The Flyers were tops in the business by January and looked to be cruising. Then they died. It was as confounding a last couple of months as anyone could remember, as nothing could seem to rouse them. There was much fretting in the land and then it turned into a shrugging acceptance that, well, maybe they can just turn it on when the time comes.

THE NAME Hart has a special place in Flyers lore. The late Gene Hart was the legendary broadcaster of the franchise from its inception until the end of the 1994-95 season. Like Harry Kalas with the Phillies and Merrill Reese with the Eagles, Hart is the voice that raised generations of Flyers fans, telling them what Philadelphia hockey was all about. So it was only natural that, for the 2006-07 season, when the Flyers decided to create an award for the player who has the best rapport with their fans, it would be named the Gene Hart Memorial Award.

EDMONTON - Jeff Carter and Mike Richards are one again. After weeks of rumblings, the Blue Jackets finally declared the Carter Experiment in Columbus a failure on the 8-month anniversary of acquiring him. Blue Jackets general manager Scott Howson sent Carter to Los Angeles, a team desperately in need of scoring, last night in exchange for defenseman Jack Johnson and a conditional first-round pick. The deal hinges upon both players passing a physical exam within 48 hours.

WHEN Lauren Hart was belting out the lyrics to the "The Star-Spangled Banner" just minutes before the opening faceoff, the last of 25 stitches was being sewn into the lips of Flyers forward Wayne Simmonds. In the next room, the Flyers' equipment managers were scrambling to add a full facial shield to his helmet. It was a night that didn't start as envisioned by Simmonds - or the Flyers. In pregame warmups, Simmonds was the unlucky recipient of a puck that ricocheted off the crossbar.

Right winger Wayne Simmonds, one of the NHL's few black players, is deeply proud of his race, but he says he wants to be respected because of what he does on the ice - not the color of his skin. Four months into his first season with the Flyers, not only has he gained respect, but he has also developed into one of the team's most popular players. Flyers fans, you see, are enamored of guys who play with an edge, and Simmonds fits that description perfectly. He is an old-school grinder and, at the same time, one of the Flyers' fastest skaters.

The stunning blockbuster trade that sent captain Mike Richards to Los Angeles last June looks better with each game. Wayne Simmonds, the rugged forward who was part of the deal, scored a pair of goals Thursday to carry the Flyers to a 4-1 win over Nashville at the Wells Fargo Center. Simmonds has 15 goals - one more than he scored all of last season with the Kings. "I think the change of scenery helped me out a little bit," said Simmonds, who totaled four points in the two games against Nashville this season.

The stunning, blockbuster trade that sent captain Mike Richards to Los Angeles last June looks better with each game. Wayne Simmonds, the rugged forward who was part of the deal, scored a pair of goals Thursday to carry the Flyers to a 4-1 win over Nashville at the Wells Fargo Center. Simmonds has 15 goals - one more than he scored all of last season with the Kings. With 32 games remaining, Simmonds is one goal shy of his career high in goals. The right winger was acquired with Brayden Schenn and a No. 2 draft pick in 2012 for Richards, who has one fewer goal and two fewer assists this season than Simmonds.

NEWARK, N.J. - With the season just past the halfway pole, it's a good time to reflect on Bombshell Day. That was last June 23, when Flyers general manager Paul Holmgren made the most stunning set of one-day moves in franchise history. It was the day the Flyers dealt captain Mike Richards and sidekick Jeff Carter - star centers who were the faces of the franchise - and signed goalie Ilya Bryzgalov. The Carter trade was in the wind. The Richards deal was, well, off the shock meter.