State Of The Kings -Dom Address
- Updated: September 19, 2015
Happy Training Camp everyone! After a long and torturous 5 months without Los Angeles Kings hockey, the LA Kings are back at the Toyota Sports Center for training camp and ready to erase the memory of the bizarre and disastrous 2014-15 season. All players have reported to camp including some new faces such as Milan Lucic, Christian Ehrhoff and Jhonas Enroth.
Reports also mentioned how rested, focused and how strong in shape some of the Kings players are in such as Captain Dustin Brown, Drew Doughty and Jonathan Quick. With every new training camp comes a fresh new start of a season and all indications point to the Kings being stubbornly determined to make amends this hockey year. Speaking of moving on from last season, one of the biggest elephants in the room that plagued the team for most of last year seems to have finally come to a conclusion. This metaphorical elephant being defensemen Slava Voynov.
On Wednesday, September 16, Voynov’s agent Rolland Hedges, released this statement on Voynov’s behalf ;
“Earlier today, I notified the National Hockey League, the National Hockey League Players’ Association and the Los Angeles Kings of my decision to immediately begin the formal process of returning to Russia with my family. I sincerely apologize to those in and around the game of hockey, who have been affected by my situation, and I also wish the Players of the LA Kings success in the future.”
The days of Slava Voynov being a Los Angeles King is officially over. The LA Kings released this statement afterwards ;
“On July 2, Slava Voynov entered a plea of no contest to domestic violence. Since that development, Mr. Voynov has been in the custody of the Seal Beach Detention Center and U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement. During this period of detention, the Los Angeles Kings decided he would no longer play for the team. The method by which we would ensure this outcome was something we carefully considered and we established a deadline of September 17 – the beginning of our 2015-16 training camp – to reach this outcome. Recently it became evident to us that our conclusion to this process would be to terminate Mr. Voynov’s Standard Player’s Contract. However, Mr. Voynov’s announcement today of his intention to leave the United States and return to Russia makes the termination unnecessary.”
In other words, as the LA Kings’ Senior Vice President/Hockey Operations and Legal Affairs Jeff Solomon said;
“He’s not on our team, he’s not on our cap, and he will not count.”
The Kings finished their statement by saying this ;
“As we have publicly stated since Mr. Voynov’s arrest last year, the Kings organization will not tolerate domestic violence. As part of that commitment, we will soon announce a series of new Conduct Awareness Training Initiatives that reflect the values and principles central to our franchise.”
Since the Kings did not terminate Voynov’s contract, the NHL will void it once he officially departs back to his native home, the Kings will still retain his rights. If (and that’s a big “if”) in a few years down the road, Voynov successfully reapplies and gets his work visa and is able and allowed to return to the NHL, then he can return to the Kings if they want him. More than likely, the Kings wouldn’t let him back on to the team but they could still use his rights as trade bait and get something for him in return.
The team’s new Conduct Awareness Training Initiative mentioned above is a program that is designed to help the Kings players deal with fame and fortune and the temptations around them, like alcohol and drugs (including pain killers) as well as domestic violence. Former NHL player Brantt Myhres was hired by the team due to his history of failed drug tests or in other words, for his “been there and done that” experience. He’ll be someone the players can turn to for support and advice.
Kings’ GM Dean Lombardi said this last June;
“I think we’re very good in terms of communicating with our players. We go out of our way to try and know them personally as human beings. I think it’s one of the reasons we’ve always had that family affect around here. But, clearly, we can do more. Maybe whether it’s the coaches and managers, the personnel people, if those people could open up to us, maybe we could’ve been aware of this potentially happening. That’s the first step. The second thing, and this is what I said with the Voynov thing, I walked down to Jeff Solomon’s office and said ‘This is my fault.’ I’ll tell you a story. We neglected to educate our players. We spend time teaching them systems, nutrition, and everything else, but we missed a big step here in terms of ensuring that they understand right and wrong and that this has to be reinforced, not only as a human being, but as somebody who is representative of your community. So it heightens the need for this.”
The King’s right now have about $6 million in cap space left. With Voynov’s contract getting voided, the Kings can now freely use that cap space (which was being saved by Lombardi just in case Voynov’s contract went back on the cap) to help re-sign superstar Anze Kopitar to a contract extension. Whether Voynov comes back to the NHL or not, I am hoping that this life lesson and experience will help him become a better and smarter person. My hope will be for his recovery in life but my thoughts will be with his family.
The other elephant in the King’s locker room, Mike Richards and his upcoming trial still needs to be settled. Will the King’s be allowed to keep his contract terminated and off the cap or will Richards and the NHLPA win the grievance and have the Kings pay the rest of his contract (and taking up valuable cap space)? This elephant story will have to be told and answered for another day.
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On Tuesday September 15th, it was announced that former LA Kings player Simon Gagne had officially announced his retirement. He played 14 seasons in the NHL and scored 601 points in 822 games. He was a part of the 2012 Stanley Cup winning Los Angeles Kings (well sort of) and helped Canada win the 2002 Olympic Gold medal and the 2004 World Cup of Hockey. Sadly, Gagne will be best remembered as another talented player, whose career was cut short due to many head injuries.
Gagne joined the Kings in the summer of 2011 as a free agent. The hopes were that Gagne would finally be the natural left winger that could play alongside Anze Kopitar (like the Kings are hoping Lucic will be for this season) that the team had been searching for. It didn’t work out that way. After playing 34 games with the Kings, Gagne suffered another serious concussion and missed the rest of the regular season and most of the playoffs. Luckily for him, he was back in time for the Stanley Cup final when the Kings faced off against the New Jersey Devils. He got to play 4 games on the “fourth” line with Colin Fraser and Jordan Nolan but ended up with 0 points. His best chance to score was on a breakaway in game 5 but his attempt was saved by a sprawling Martin Brodeur.
During the short 2013 season, Gagne was struggling with Darryl Sutter’s style of defensive hockey and asked Lombardi for a trade. Lombardi, being the man he is, traded Gagne to his original team (where he had the most success with) the Philadelphia Flyers. Gagne had this to say about his time with the Kings;
“Going to L.A. and winning the Cup, it’s a dream of all players in the NHL, but when you take that Cup it’s all the sacrifice you did when you were younger, the injuries you had to go through, the ups and downs and hard times, this was the best feeling in the world.”
Gagne last played for the Boston Bruins last season but had to leave the team in December after his father’s health worsened. He later passed away and Gagne never played another game.
Even though we barely knew you Simon, thank you for all you did for the Los Angeles Kings and best of luck in your future adventures. All the best!
I will finish this article with a video from the talented and legendary You Tuber, editor and LA Kings fan JM Salsa. Just beware that there is footage of some players that are no longer with the team but you’ll get the point. So forget that Winter is Coming (well at least in some parts of the world) because Los Angeles Kings hockey is finally HERE! GO KINGS GO!!!
Stay with us at Calisportsnews.com as we will keep you up-to-date on all things Los Angeles Kings and the rest of the LA sports teams! All Cali, All the time!
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