Kings coach Darryl Sutter was hired at midseason last season and inherited a talented but underachieving team. Among the players on the roster he didn’t know much about was a young Russian defenseman named Slava Voynov. Sutter talked Wednesday about Voynov’s progress from then until now.
“I guess what I remember most was he wasn’t playing much if he was here,” Sutter recalled. “It was a big adjustment for him. There definitely was a language barrier. Whether he was uncomfortable with not wanting to converse, whatever it was. That’s an issue.