Los Angeles Kings forward Kevin Fiala’s leg injury he suffered in his team’s Olympic loss to Canada appears to be a season ender according to reports out of Italy.
Fiala had to be stretchered off the ice with just 3 minutes remaining after taking a hit from Tom Wilson in his team’s eventual 5-1 loss in round robin play. The play seemed innocent enough at first, but the two players legs became tangled, and it appeared as though Wilson’s full weight landed on Fiala’s left leg.
The 29 year old was taken to a local hospital with an air cast on his left leg, and eventually underwent surgery to correct the issue.
There was no penalty called on the play, and there doesn’t appear to be much of an appetite from organizing bodies to review the incident afterwards for any supplemental discipline. Swiss coach Patrick Fischer labelled the hit “accidental” afterwards when speaking to reporters.
For his part, Wilson told members of the press “He’s a competitor, obviously. At this point, it’s the Olympic Games, and I feel terrible that he may not be able to keep playing and just sending his family and him my best…You never want to see a guy go down in a tournament like this, especially. It sucks for the country, for their team, and just wishing him a quick recovery.”
Across 56 games for the Kings this season, Fiala registered 18G, and 22A to go along with 34 PIMs. The Swiss forward had been playing a middle six role for LA in 2025-26, and had been occupying the left wing slot alongside Quinton Byfield and Andrei Kuzmenko of late.
“Very obviously sad, and it sucks for him and for us,” Kings teammate Adrian Kempe said Saturday. “It’s really tough for him personally and for us as a team. You know how much he means to our team back home in L.A. It’s just very unfortunate for him that it comes in a tournament like this that we’ve been looking forward to playing in for so long. I feel for him.”
Switzerland will need to regroup quickly as they’ll face Czechia at 6:10am ET on Sunday morning in what amounts to a must win game for the team seeding wise.
Photo: Jenn G. This file is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 2.0 Generic license.