{"id":180444,"date":"2026-02-16T19:04:11","date_gmt":"2026-02-16T19:04:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/180444\/"},"modified":"2026-02-16T19:04:11","modified_gmt":"2026-02-16T19:04:11","slug":"kevin-fiala-injury-could-force-kings-to-make-trade-deadline-move","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/180444\/","title":{"rendered":"Kevin Fiala injury could force Kings to make trade deadline move"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Drew Doughty<\/a> had a day off Monday and planned to spend part of it visiting with NHL teammate Kevin Fiala<\/a>. But he hadn\u2019t planned on having to go to the hospital to do that.<\/p>\n

Fiala, who is third on the Kings in goals, points and assists, underwent surgery over the weekend to repair multiple fractures in his lower left leg and will miss the rest of the season. Fiala was playing for Switzerland against Doughty and Canada in the Milan-Cortina Olympic<\/a> hockey tournament Friday when he backed into a hit by Washington Capitals\u2019 forward Tom Wilson along the side boards with less than three minutes left in Canada\u2019s 5-1 win.<\/p>\n

Both players\u2019 legs became tangled and Fiala\u2019s foot got caught on the ice as they fell, with the 225-pound Wilson landing hard on Fiala\u2019s leg. Fiala, who was laying face down on the ice, was able to prop himself on his elbows but did not move his lower body before being placed on a stretcher and taken to a hospital.<\/p>\n

\u201cNot the ending I imagined for my first Olympics,\u201d Fiala wrote in an Instagram post from the hospital.<\/p>\n

The Kings released a statement confirming that Fiala, 29, will miss the rest of the season, dealing a severe blow to the team\u2019s push for a fifth straight playoff berth. The Kings entered the Olympic break fifth in the Pacific Division, three points behind the Ducks in the battle for the Western Conference\u2019s final wild-card berth.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s just part of the game,\u201d Doughty, who was on the ice at the time, said of the injury. \u201cPeople get hurt all the time. I\u2019ve missed 80 games in the last three years. It\u2019s just the way she goes.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s unfortunate and I feel for Kevin big time. But it\u2019s just part of the game.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Switzerland's <\/p>\n

Switzerland\u2019s Kevin Fiala is attended to by medical staff after sustaining a broken leg against Canada on Friday. <\/p>\n

(Bruce Bennett \/ Getty Images)<\/p>\n

NHL players haven\u2019t participated in the Olympics since 2014, but every team sent at least one player to the tournament this year. Kings President Luc Robitaille, a Hall of Famer who represented Canada internationally, said he would never deny a player a chance to play for country even if there\u2019s a chance of injury.<\/p>\n

\u201cI got to play with guys like Wayne Gretzky, that understood what was good for the game. So I understand the value to expand the reach of our game,\u201d Robitaille said. \u201cAs hard as it is when you lose a guy, I still believe it\u2019s a great thing for our game to go to the Olympics, where people can watch the best of the world playing in those tournaments.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt hurts because Kevin is such a great player and he\u2019s an important player for our team. But if the game gets better for it after a few tournaments, it helps everyone in the world of hockey. That\u2019s what it\u2019s about. It\u2019s about looking at the big picture.\u201d<\/p>\n

Doughty said the players are aware of the risks but the opportunity to play for your country is worth the gamble.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe don\u2019t care,\u201d he said. \u201cWe want to play and it\u2019s best-on-best hockey. We don\u2019t come here worrying about being hurt. We just come here to try to win games and win a gold medal.\u201d<\/p>\n

Earlier this month the Kings acquired forward Artemi Panarin<\/a> from the New York Rangers in an effort to boost the league\u2019s third-worst offense for a playoff push. The loss of Fiala might prompt general manager Ken Holland to look for more help ahead of the March 6 trade deadline.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re going to have to adjust,\u201d Robitaille said. \u201cI\u2019m sure Ken will be pounding the phone right now. No one can replace one player in hockey, it\u2019s always about the team. So we\u2019re going to see. But at the same time, I\u2019m pretty comfortable.\u201d<\/p>\n

Wilson was not penalized for the hit, which appeared to be clean.<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t see any bad intention at all. Things happen,\u201d Switzerland\u2019s Nico Hischier said. \u201cThey got tangled up there and fell on the ground. It\u2019s just an unfortunate play.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Olympic tournament resumes Tuesday with four quarterfinal qualification games. The U.S. and Canada, both unbeaten, plus Slovakia and Finland have already advanced to the final eight. On Wednesday the U.S. will play the winner of the Sweden-Latvia playoff while Canada will face the Czechia-Denmark winner.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Drew Doughty had a day off Monday and planned to spend part of it visiting with NHL teammate…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":180445,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[12672,42873,58409,85630,423,27586,1583,2871,664,48,52,51,47,50,49,1459,9442,1417,427,12967,85629],"class_list":{"0":"post-180444","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-los-angeles","8":"tag-canada","9":"tag-drew-doughty","10":"tag-fiala","11":"tag-first-olympics","12":"tag-game","13":"tag-general-manager","14":"tag-hospital","15":"tag-ice","16":"tag-king","17":"tag-la","18":"tag-la-headlines","19":"tag-la-news","20":"tag-los-angeles","21":"tag-los-angeles-headlines","22":"tag-los-angeles-news","23":"tag-part","24":"tag-player","25":"tag-point","26":"tag-team","27":"tag-tournament","28":"tag-trade-deadline-move"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/180444","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=180444"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/180444\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/180445"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=180444"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=180444"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=180444"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}