Come on, Richards isn't that bad. He had a bad Stanley Cup finals, and all of a sudden he's terrible. He'd be a completely solid, cheap, second line center option for us who is all but guaranteed to put up 50 points, and could easily pleasantly surprise us.
What other second line centre options can we get for free that won't cost us an arm and leg in salary and term? I don't want to pay what we would need to for Spezza. Some team is going to give Statsny over seven million a season, other second line centres have just as much baggage as Richards, and the prospects others are advocating simply aren't solutions to make us better for next year.