Michael Richards Speaks… Live From Cabo

Flyers beat reporter Chuck Gormley got Michael Richards to break his silence… from Cabo.

Between Tim Panaccio’s doomsday reporting, Lavs’ comments, and the expected fallout from a second round abortion, El Capitan has been getting from all sides. Given that he's in Cabo, that may be both figuratively and literally true.

Richards told Gormley that it’s sunny and 85 every day in Cabo, and that he had to hang back while Carts and Car Bomb went jet skiing. His hand is no longer in a cast, it is in a small split for the next four weeks. He says he is more upset about the way the season ended than he is with the stuff being said about him, but understands most of that comes from his dealings with the media.

Q: What have you learned, especially in dealing with the media?

A: I don’t know. You’ve got to calm yourself down before you go to the media. Maybe I need to take about five or ten minutes to calm myself and gather my thoughts and then go in there and choose my words wiser. Sometimes you try to joke around or say things that get blown up. You’ve got to realize that everything you say can be taken the wrong way and you have to be careful.

Perhaps his “nerd!!!!” Tweet would have never happened if he took five.

Richards has full confidence in Bob, and builds a pretty reasonable case for why we should too.

Q: As captain, would you like to see the team address that this summer and get a No. 1 goalie?

A: I have full confidence in Bob (Sergei Bobrovsky) coming in and playing well. If you look at what he was accustomed to before coming to the NHL, that’s a lot of games for a goaltender who switches over. You saw how well he played in the beginning of the year when he was rested, strong and feeling good about himself. It’s a long season and sometimes you get tired out. As a player who has been there before you make adjustments, train differently and learn as you go and I think Bob is going to do that. He’s going to be a good goaltender in this league and hopefully I can go through it with him.

Ah yes, the always sane “we’re humans and may just be tired” reasoning. Bob may still be a year or two away, but Michael has a good point.

On Lavs:

Q: A lot has been made in the past two weeks about the relationship between Peter Laviolette and you. How would you describe it?

A: I would say it’s a typical player-coach relationship. I’m not the loudest, most outgoing guy. I probably could be better. But we go out for breakfast on the road some mornings just to go over things and catch up. We talk a lot. I was shocked to see an article that said we didn’t talk for months. That couldn’t be further from the truth and it was shocking to hear. We probably talk once every two weeks about everything. We’ll have conversations about power play, conversations about different players. I played with a lot of people this year on my line and we talked about that a ton. Yeah, it’s a work in progress. Like I said, I’m a pretty quiet guy to everybody. Even talk to my dad. We’re just quiet people. We don’t make excuses, we don’t complain. We’re not just going to babble about anything. It’s no different than with Lavvy. Could it be better? Maybe. But at the same time, we talk a lot about a lot of things. We bounce a lot of ideas off each other and that’s what coaches and players do.

You can read the rest here. It’s a must read.

Fist pound to (@dxflyers) for the heads up