NHL Rumors: Will Hollywood Pitch Be Enough for LA Kings to Land Brad Richards?

If you thought Mike Richards was the only "Richards" the Los Angeles Kings would try to add ahead of the 2011-12 NHL season, think again.

According to the Los Angeles Times, the Kings made a private, 90-minute presentation to prized free agent Brad Richards and his agent, Pat Morris, in Toronto on Friday with the hope of luring him to LA.

The eight-man delegation, led by Tim Leiweke, the chief executive of Anschutz Entertainment Group, which owns the Kings (and pretty much all of downtown Los Angeles), emerged from the meeting with nothing but good things to say about how things went, with Leiweke himself telling the Times:

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"He was very impressed. Our team did the best player presentation I have ever seen."

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Leiweke went on to praise Richards for his reception of the presentation, which included recruiting pitches from a number of local luminaries, including Los Angeles Lakers star Kobe Bryant and Hollywood producer extraordinaire Jerry Bruckheimer, saying of Richards:

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"He not only asked questions, we stayed behind and talked one-on-one. He's a very good guy, and I liked him a lot. He was very knowledgeable and a good-character guy.”

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So, with all that being said, what are the chances Richards actually ends up with the up-and-coming Kings?

Much of LA's chances depends on the offers put forth by the other top suitors involved in the Brad Richards bidding war, chiefly the Tampa Bay Lightning and the New York Rangers along with the Buffalo Sabres and the Toronto Maple Leafs.

The Lightning, for whom Richards played from 2000 to 2008, were the first team to make a pitch to the former Conn Smythe Trophy winner, who earned the award when he led Tampa Bay to the Stanley Cup title in 2004. However, Lightning general manager Steve Yzerman will likely need more than just good will to lure Richards back to Florida, as he may not have enough money at his disposal to both bring Richards back and hang on to restricted free agent Steve Stamkos.

The Rangers are scheduled to be the last team to meet with Richards and are expected to throw everything, including the proverbial kitchen sink (i.e. lots and lots of money), onto the negotiating table.

The Kings' offer, on the other hand, is reported to be around $6.5 million per year for seven to nine years, though team management clearly hopes the allure of playing with a young, talented team amidst the glitz and glamour of LA will be enough to tip the scales in their favor.

Because, certainly, the Kings and their fans have no desire to be made a mockery of by an expensive free agent like they were last summer, when Ilya Kovalchuk gave team management the run-around, spurning a 15-year, $80 million offer from LA before re-upping with New Jersey for $100 million over the same span.

As such, don't expect the Kings to go the extra mile-and-a-half if that's what Richards and his agent ask of them in the end.

Now, should Brad Richards make the move to LA, what would he bring to the Kings, other than a last-name redundancy on the team's roster?

Well, for one, Richards brings with him a bevy of valuable playoff experience, including 62 points in 63 career postseason games played and a Stanley Cup champion, to a team that has snuck its way into the postseason the last two seasons, albeit as a low seed.

The 31-year-old center is also intimately familiar with the Pacific Division in which the Kings play, having spent the last four seasons with the Dallas Stars, one of LA's chief division rivals.

Most importantly, Richards is from Prince Edward Island, which...okay, so maybe his home state in Canada isn't all that important to how he would fare on the ice for the Kings.

But, if the Kings are fortunate enough to be the last team standing for Brad Richards at the end of this process, they'll have a tremendous core, along with Mike Richards, Anze Kopitar, Dustin Brown and Drew Doughty, that could bring the team to the cusp of its first-ever Stanley Cup championship sooner rather than later.