Former Kings defenseman Slava Voynov has signed a one-year contract with a team in Russia's Kontinental Hockey League.
Avangard Omsk announced Monday that it signed Voynov, who is suspended by the NHL for half of next season because of what the league ruled was a domestic assault incident from 2014.
The Kings severed ties to Voynov, 29, when his suspension was reduced in May, but they retain at least some of his rights and are in the process of determining that through the NHL Players' Association. The Kings did not comment on the KHL signing.
Voynov was initially suspended for the entire 2019-20 season, but arbitrator Shyam Das ruled that Voynov will be credited with having already served 41 games of the suspension during the 2018-19 season.
Voynov was a member of the Kings' 2012 and 2014 Stanley Cup title teams, and his Kings career ended with an alleged incident in October2014 in which his wife, Marta Varlamova, told police that Voynov assaulted her at a Halloween party. Voynov pleaded no contest to a misdemeanor charge of corporal injury to a spouse and was suspended indefinitely. He served nearly two months in jail.
Voynov last played hockey in the 2018 Winter Olympics for Russia. In a statement on Avangard's website, team President Maxim Sushinsky said in Russian that Voynov is "known to all hockey fans" for "experience, skill, reliability, performance."
"Voynov's motivation (is) to prove to everyone, and above all to himself, that he is capable of solving the highest tasks with a top club," Sushinsky said.
