Looking back at fantasy hockey's foremost fallen star…Mike Richards

Playing Halo with your buddies can be a great time. There you are, this intergalactic warrior, roaming around with your battle rifle taking names and kicking ass. You've got a controller in one hand, Doritos in the other, three empty cans of mountain dew strewn across the floor. Life is good, man.

Then, suddenly, in your peripheral vision, you see this weird flashing blue light. You lean into your television to get a better look – what is that? – S%&T!!!– there, attached to your right leg, is a blue plasma grenade. It's about to get real. There isn't really much you can do at this point. You charge into battle heroically, firing your gun and yelling uncontrollably. In your mind Hans Zimmer begins composing some epic send-off ballad that starts to crescendo as the final seconds tick away. No matter what you do, that grenade is going to go off and leave you as a mix of blue goop and pixelated body parts.

Mike Richards a lot like that blue plasma grenade. (If you weren't following my convoluted and likely unnecessary analogy above). At first we were all intrigued by that blue flashing light. Not anymore. Now he's the guy that destroyed many fantasy keeper cores. And at only 29 years old, has left us scratching our heads.

In 2008-09 he had 30 goals, 50 assists, 63 penalty minutes, and 238 shots. It was the kind of cross category coverage you can only get in the first two rounds of most formats. And he did it at 23 years old. His shooting percentage, normally a tell-tale sign of good luck, sat at only 12.6 percent, easily repeatable.

Making matters worse, he had a decent draft pedigree, going off the board to Philadelphia at 23 in 2003. His outburst was in no way attributed to wonky numbers or "luck", he was a burgeoning star who was approaching his apex.

I count myself among those that were excited about Richards. He had it all. From stats on the ice, to those lovely intangibles that clog up media airwaves. He was a winner, better yet, he was a productive fantasy player.

In our dynasty league a manager had to trade Marty St.Louis and a significant draft pick to acquire him. At the time many of us though the Richards' side had been ripped off, fleeced! Only receiving a then 34 year old St.Louis for a guy who was in his early twenties and appeared to have a decade of dominance in front of him.

Understandably, he shot up the rankings. Here is Dobber's top 50 from December of 2008:

This was only mid-way through his breakout season and already he was up to 33^rd overall. Siting above names like Perry, Toews, and Kessel. It speaks to how quickly his value was increasing. Much like Perry today, so few guys have the ability to fill nearly every category.

Interesting to note that he was one spot above Nikolai Zherdev. I often forget how highly regarded the former Blue Jacket was at that time. You would have been hard pressed to find a poolie that didn't want to own either one of them in 2008.

Richards followed up his outburst with only 62 points in 2009-10. Due in large part to a drop in assists from 50 to 31. Poolies remained undeterred, however, he was now a two time 30 goal scorer and had proven he could sustain quality shot and penalty minute totals over multiple campaigns.

The following season is where we started to worry. His points again remained in the sixties, ending at 66, with shots dipping below 200, to 184. It was around this time when possible issues within the dressing room emerged in the media.

The ensuring trade to Los Angeles in the summer of 2011 was shocking, for both Flyers' fans and fantasy managers. It was hard to know what to expect. The prevailing wisdom was that Richards may have needed a change of scenery to help bring him back to his scoring ways. Los Angeles was a team with a number of offensive weapons and with the addition of the former Flyers' captain were expected to score.

Not quite.

We're now three years into his career as a King and things have only gotten worse (from a fantasy standpoint, personally, he's probably ok with one – possibly two – Stanley Cup rings). His shot totals have continued to dwindle, sitting at 157 this year. Points have slid into the low forties, with barely double digit goals. Even penalty minutes, once considered a hallmark of his gritty, passionate style, have fallen below 30.

He has become, to put it bluntly, irrelevant in most pools. It's clear that Los Angeles prefers deploying him in a defensive, shutdown role on their third or fourth line. Fantastic for team success, but a horrible way to make your fantasy living.

If there is a lesson to be learned here it might be this – don't hold on to long. When he moved out to California, then two years removed from being an elite asset, there were still those clinging to him as a core piece. Hoping that somehow, just maybe, changing a sweater would bring him back. While switching teams can bring new coaches, line -mates, systems…etc, it also comes with inherent risk.

Once a player has put together two consecutive disappointing years we may need to accept that he has changed. One poor season can be attributed to a variety of issues, most of them relatively short term. Two? In your mid-twenties – that's something to worry about.

That's a blue plasma grenade.

Darren Kennedy is a writer for Dobber and Mckeen's Hockey, you can find him on twitter @fantasyhockeydk, or on his couch watching a Friday Night Lights marathon