As expected, the NHLPA has filed a grievance over the Kings’ June 29 termination of Mike Richards’ contract. This opens what could be a complicated legal battle, though Sportsnet’s Chris Johnston notes that the players’ association has requested an expedited hearing. Per Johnston, there’s no timetable on when the grievance will be heard.
The NHLPA had 60 days to file a grievance following the termination.
Virtually no details of the Kings’ decision to terminate Richards’ contract are available beyond the club’s reference to a “material breach of the requirements of his Standard Player’s Contract” in a June 29 statement, but the decision appears to have been motivated in part by a Royal Canadian Mounted Police investigation of an incident at the United States-Canada border earlier this year.
Richards is due $22 million over the final five years of his 12-year contract, which was signed in 2007 while he was a member of the Philadelphia Flyers. Prior to his termination, he carried a $5.75M cap hit. Following the termination, the Kings were due to be affected by $1.32M of cap recapture penalties through 2019-20; were Richards to have been bought out, the Kings would have been affected by cap penalties that would have topped out at $4.22M between 2018-19 and 2019-20 and would have counted against the salary cap through 2024-25.
This story is ongoing, and more on today’s developments will follow. Additional information is available at Sportsnet.ca.
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