Kings Terminate Former Flyer Mike Richards' Contract For "Material Breach". Whatever The Hell That Means
LA Kings – The Los Angeles Kings have terminated the contract of forward Mike Richards, the club announced today.
The club has issued the following statement and will not comment any further at this time:
“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.”
Well something seems fishy around here. Yesterday the Los Angeles Kings placed Mike Richards on waivers. It’s been common knowledge now for a while that the Kings were planning on buying out Richards’ contract and that he wouldn’t be returning to LA next season. But today they announced that they’re terminating his contract due to a “material breach”. There haven’t been any details disclosed yet on what the hell this “material breach” was but if I had to take a guess, it would be because of the fact that he sucks now? Seems legitimate to me. The only way that I can really summarize what happened between Richie and the Kings today is through the help of our good friend Mac.
That’s exactly what happened. After winning 2 Cups in Los Angeles, Richards’ play started to deteriorate pretty drastically. He spent a while over in Manchester playing in the AHL this season while being under contract for the next million years (but really 5) at a $5.75 million cap hit per (shoutout to Paul Holmgren). So yeah, obviously the Kings were going buy him out and now they’re finding a way to circumvent that so they can just wipe him off the books completely. His contract is a complete mess so I can’t blame the Kings for at least trying this. But this whole scenario is for sure far from over. Quick word of advice to the Kings…
As it stands, the Kings are free from Richards and only have to pay him what he was due up to this point. Richards is free to sign with another team but that was going to be the case anyway. It’ll be real interesting to see how this all plays out in arbitration. And hopefully you’re having a better Monday than Mike Richards is. But hopefully he takes a little time off now and joins the rest of us degenerates in Sea Isle for the Fourth.
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Sidenote: If Mike Richards does, in fact, still wear Ed Hardy tees… well then I think the Kings may be in the right here. I don’t know much about lawyering, I don’t know much about how contracts work, but I do know that wearing Ed Hardy is grounds for termination.
