It's a choice - there is nothing having to do with the justice system here. I don't know why anyone keeps on saying this. There is no discrimination. Slava Voynov has no recourse. Maybe if he were an American or Canadian citizen it would be different (then only *maybe*, and I doubt it), but he isn't. End of story.
His criminal record is neither here nor there. We all know he's an unrepentant wife beater. The only question is whether the league and a team want to employ an unrepentant wife beater.
The fact that Dean Lombardi terminated a contract because of a player's drug problem, but supported an unrepentant wife beater should be shameful enough. The idea that a Kings fan would think this issue is anything other than cut and dry is bizarre.
Lombardi and the Kings immediately distanced themselves from Voynov and this case as soon as more details began to emerge. Over the first several weeks, it was very unclear what exactly had taken place.
Lombardi personally supported Richards throughout his entire descent into addiction. He was flying out to Kelowna during the summer to check on Mike and see how he was doing. He freakin’ agreed to not utilize a CBO on Mike’s promise that he was seeking help for his addiction.
The border incident was a final broken promise in a long string of broken promises from Mike Richards. There’s a reason the NHLPA decided to settle on a moderate, re-structured buyout rather than fight the league tooth and nail. How many player contracts have been successfully terminated in the cap era? Lombardi and the Kings had a very strong case.
Whether or not Voynov has an ethical right to work again after what he did is an entirely different debate. But this myth of the Kings terminating Richards at the first opportune moment and supporting Voynov to the bitter end is just that: a myth. Richards was given many, many chances to turn his life around. Not only did he fail to do so, he continually shackled the Kings franchise (first by convincing Lombardi to not use a CBO, second by torching a trade with the Flames at the 2015 draft due to the border incident).
There was a lot of conflicting information in the initial Voynov news deluge. Lombardi made a very poor decision to have the Kings skate with Voynov in those early weeks, a mistake he was appropriately fined for.
Moreover, there’s a reason Lombardi is no longer employed by the Kings, some of that pertaining to the way he handled both the Richards and Voynov situations, among many other reasons.
There's an old proverb saying "if he hits, he loves", but that's about it, people aren't dumb enough to actually base their behavior on it.
