Not always. Many times with the charged they have against him, they know they don't have much of a case. This charge is used many times to pressure the defense into pleading to a lesser charge. It works a lot in cases when a person could lose a lot of money, a job or even lose a green card if convicted of the felony. Many times the defendant will plead to the lesser charge to make it go away.
ff soapbox:
The problem was there was no rule on how to handle this. It is not in the CBA. The NHL has never suspended someone with pay before for more than a few games, if ever. They had no precident. Two players got convicted of homicide (vehicular) and were not suspended at all. One was too injured to play and one went to jail for a year, but the NHL never suspended them. As soon as they were able to play they came back.
I think the NHL and more so the NHLPA were hoping for the charges to be dropped. The NHL has been saying all along that it should be treated like LTIR but the PA didn't want their players to get hit with the escrow payments. Both sides want him paid. The PA because he is a player and they want players to get money. NHL because there are so many cases of players getting arrested and some convicted of all sots of crimes but not being punished by the league that Voynov could take them to court for being singled out by the league. This could still happen.
Now the Kings are not going to sign some 4 million dollar player because the have cap space. Who is out there? They are not going to trade for one either. Who would dump someone this early in the season to help the Kings? ( insert Sabers comment) Once Voynov comes back ( I will give my thoughts why that is likely later), What do they do with this new guy? Trade someone for nothing? That makes two bad trades in one season. What this will let the Kings do is maybe bring up someone from Manchester. They were so close to the cap they had to void an AHL only player contract and sign him for the minimum to field a full team. Now they can call up some 700k player.
Now more of my thoughts on Voynov. Based on what I have read, and I read a lot on this, I think that he did something stupid, in anger, and hurt her. Maybe a push, maybe a pull, maybe he knocked over a bookcase. In my opinion he did something. He maybe in his head didn't think about hurting her, but she did get hurt. The charge against him is a wobbler. They DA charges it as a felony but almost all of these get reduced to a misdemeanor. It says the court time and money and the accused time and money. "you plead guilty and we let you off easy". That is why I think he will be back before the end of the season. If he really did nothing wrong he might fight it for PR reasons, but why take a chance of being deported if he can walk away with community service.
I am not a fan of abuse. I was renting a condo to a girl who's boyfriend hit her and she lied to me about it. She then let him move in. I lost 3000.00 of rent and fines to get him out. I will not accept any man physically hurting a women. I am a bit of a male chauvinist pig that way. A man should support and protect any women he can, especially if he claims to love her. As more facts come out I will have a hard time supporting Voynov. I already don't. I am hoping to hear something that changes my mind.
