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Drew Doughty had a day off Monday and planned to spend part of it visiting with NHL teammate Kevin Fiala. But he hadn’t planned on having to go to the hospital to do that.
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 hockey tournament Friday when he backed into a hit by Washington Capitals’ forward Tom Wilson along the side boards with less than three minutes left in Canada’s 5-1 win.
Both players’ legs became tangled and Fiala’s foot got caught on the ice as they fell, with the 225-pound Wilson landing hard on Fiala’s 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.
“Not the ending I imagined for my first Olympics,” Fiala wrote in an Instagram post from the hospital.
The Kings released a statement confirming that Fiala, 29, will miss the rest of the season, dealing a severe blow to the team’s 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’s final wild-card berth.
“It’s just part of the game,” Doughty, who was on the ice at the time, said of the injury. “People get hurt all the time. I’ve missed 80 games in the last three years. It’s just the way she goes.
“It’s unfortunate and I feel for Kevin big time. But it’s just part of the game.”
NHL players haven’t participated in the Olympics since 2014, but every team sent at least one player to the tournament this year, leaving team owners and general managers watching the tournament with fingers crossed, hoping their players come home healthy.
That’s a gamble the Kings lost. Doughty said the players are aware of the risks but the opportunity to play for your country is worth the gamble.
“We don’t care,” he said. “We want to play and it’s best-on-best hockey. We don’t come here worrying about being hurt. We just come here to try to win games and win a gold medal.”
Earlier this month the Kings acquired forward Artemi Panarin from the New York Rangers in an effort to boost the league’s 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.
“It sucks to see something happen like that to him,” said Kings teammate Adrian Kempe, who is playing in the Olympics for Sweden. “Especially when you’ve been waiting all your life to play in a tournament like this, [then] he goes down in the second game.”
Wilson was not penalized for the hit, which appeared to be clean.
“I don’t see any bad intention at all. Things happen,” Switzerland’s Nico Hischier said. “They got tangled up there and fell on the ground. It’s just an unfortunate play.”
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.