Kings terminate Mike Richards contract

Well, that is a surprise.  It has been widely assumed that the Kings would buyout the contract of Mike Richards after failing to do so last year.

Instead, they surprised Richards by terminating his contract for material breach.

The Kings released this short statement:

“The Los Angeles Kings today have exercised the team’s right to terminate the contract of Mike Richards for a material breach of the requirements of his Standard Player’s Contract. We are not prepared to provide any more detail or to discuss the underlying grounds for the contract termination at this time.”

This likely comes as a cap-freeing move.  It does have the interesting side effect of making Richards an unrestricted free agent and able to sign with any team.  But that seems unlikely at this point.  He, along with the Players Association, also have the right to file a grievance.

SI.com added this insight:

Granted, there may be a perfectly valid reason for termination. According The Fourth Period’s David Pagnotta, the Kings used Section 18A-2 of the Collective Bargaining Agreement, which allows the commissioner authority to impose discipline for off-ice conduct.

“Whenever the Commissioner determines that a Player has violated a League Rule applicable to Players (other than Playing Rules subjecting the Player to potential Supplementary Discipline for On-Ice Conduct), or has been or is guilty of conduct (whether during or outside the playing season) that is detrimental to or against the welfare of the League or the game of hockey, he may discipline such Player in any or all of the following respects:

(a) by expelling or suspending such Player for a definite or indefinite period;
(b) by cancelling any SPC that such Player has with any Member Club

That makes the breach, whatever it might have been, sound fairly ominous.

Image courtesy of conrad.