NHL's Hard Line with Slava Voynov Remains Justified as Horrible Details Emerge

While the NHL has been largely praised for the firm stance it has taken on Los Angeles Kings defenceman Slava Voynov, who has been suspended indefinitely since Oct. 20 due to domestic violence charges, there have been dissenters. Foremost among them has been the team itself, which has given lip service to supporting the suspension but had no problem with letting Voynov practice and associate with the squad.

As the Los Angeles Times' Lisa Dillman noted, general manager Dean Lombardi and the club allowed Voynov to skate with his teammates Dec. 2:

The league promptly fined the Kings $100,000 for that decision, which set off a round of “so much for innocent until proven guilty” from some Los Angeles fans. But while there are those grousing about the unfairness of it all, those muttered complaints are nothing compared to the outcry the league would be facing today if it had turned a blind eye to the charges against Voynov.

Voynov’s preliminary hearing took place on Monday in Torrance, California, and the prosecution got to lay out its case against the 24-year-old. While the trial and verdict are still a long way off, the details revealed by the state were shocking. The Los Angeles Times’ Nathan Fenno covered the hearing and provided details on Twitter, including graphic descriptions of the alleged violence:

Voynov will now stand trial facing a felony charge and will be arraigned Dec. 29.

It’s unclear how much of today’s evidence was known to the league when it made the decision to suspend Voynov. It’s also unclear how much of the evidence was known to the Kings organization when it decided it would be good for Voynov to hang out with the team for a day. What should be abundantly clear, however, is that the NHL was in no position to wait out a verdict before opting to suspend Voynov.

The important thing to remember here is that the bar for suspension is not the same as the bar for finding Voynov guilty in a court of law.

Ethically, the league has a bigger obligation to society than that. Imagine if Voynov had played against the Maple Leafs on Sunday or was preparing to play against the Blues tomorrow; what message would that send regarding the league’s view of violence against women? It would have said that the NHL didn’t much care what happened off the ice, that as long as a man can play hockey there would be no professional repercussions for misbehavior in his private life.

That would have been unacceptable. The NHL was in a position to send a statement that it would not tolerate domestic violence; it’s a statement that society desperately needs from people and organizations in positions of authority.

Nam Y. Huh/Associated Press

Pragmatically, it was also the only sensible road forward for the NHL, which relies on a satisfied public to watch its games and support its advertisers. Any suggestion that the league tolerated the kind of behavior alleged in court on Monday would have had a serious impact on the league’s public image, just as the NFL’s mishandling of Ray Rice has reflected poorly on that league and its sponsors.

It can’t be OK for any professional athlete to go on playing his sport as if nothing had happened even as a policeman stands in court and claims that same athlete pushed his wife to the ground and kicked and choked her repeatedly. It can’t be OK for a league or a team to maintain the status quo even as a prosecutor alleges that this incident may be only the latest in a pattern of domestic violence.

The allegations are simply too serious to ignore, the subject matter too serious to paper over until such time as the charges are proved beyond a shadow of a doubt.

The NHL took a firm stance, and that hard line looks increasingly justified by the day.

Jonathan Willis covers the NHL for Bleacher Report. Follow him on Twitter for more of his work.