Not to mention Stoll.
There was a lot of control lost in the locker room, and too many players were lost for virtually nothing.
Stoll was a hero, not a problem. He was already leaving as a UFA so he took the rap for the younger guys in that incident.
Voynov was absolutely a problem, but I don't think that there is a 2nd pairing defenseman in the world that would be a big enough loss to justify the decline.
Richards may have likely had another 2 or 3 strong years had he not been addicted to pain killers, but he also may not have held up physically even if he didn't. Tough to tell, but something isn't beautiful because it lasts.
The Kings fell off a cliff because their success wasn't due to top players leading from the front - it was due to a frankly modest set of good to very good young players surrounded by a damn near legendary amount of leaders. And those veteran leaders - Richards, Mitchell, Scuderi, Regehr, Stoll, Greene and Williams all left without a single asset in return. The remaining players were very good, never great aside from Doughty, and the increases in their post-Cup contracts priced the Kings out of top free agents while they overspent their assets to try and remain relevant with players they overvalued.
They had no capital to improve a mediocre roster, the Cup core never transitioned into a top leadership group, and they had a management team more intent on monetizing the good will built by the previous regime than in building another team capable of a run.
lakingsinsider.com
