Breaking News: LA Kings Acquire Kevin Fiala

The LA Kings have traded for the top-six scoring winger they have been looking for when they picked up the rights to Kevin Fiala from the Minnesota Wild. In return, the Wild receive Los Angeles’s first-round pick in this year’s NHL Entry Draft (nineteenth overall) and the rights to defenseman Brock Faber.

Fiala, a first-round draft pick of the Nashville Predators in 2014, was traded to the Minnesota Wild in 2019 straight up for Mikael Granlund. Since joining the Wild, the soon-to-be twenty-six-year-old left-wing found his stride posting three straight seasons of at least twenty goals scored. He had a career season in 2021-22, playing in all eighty-two games and posting thirty-three goals and fifty-two assists for eighty-five points.

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Fiala will require a new contract as he is now a restricted free agent. Minnesota was forced to trade the budding superstar as they are facing a salary-cap crunch and would not be able to pay Fiala the salary he will be seeking. The LA Kings currently have close to $20 million in salary-cap space, and according to Elliotte Friedman, he thinks the contract Fiala will get from the Kings will be around $8 million AAV per season. The term is expected to be seven to eight seasons.

The LA Kings drafted Brock Faber in the second round of the 2020 NHL Entry Draft. The nineteen-year-old right-shot defenseman is coming home, as he is from Maple Grove, Minnesota and currently plays at the University of Minnesota. He has been a standout player in the NCAA and for the United States National Teams he has played for, as Faber is known for his shutdown defensive abilities. Faber elected not to sign with the Kings this offseason and opted to return to the Gophers for another season instead.

With the trade of their first-round pick, the Kings will not have a pick in the first round of this year’s draft as of right now. The 2022 NHL Entry Draft will take place on July 7th and 8th.