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Kings forward Kevin Fiala was taken off on a stretcher from Switzerland's group-stage game against Canada after getting tangled up with Tom Wilson along the boards. Bruce Bennett / Getty Images
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MILAN — Tom Wilson never heard a scream. But once he detangled himself from Switzerland forward Kevin Fiala along the boards, it didn’t take long to figure out something was very wrong. Fiala lay flat on the ice, face down, not moving. And when Wilson saw the replay on the scoreboard at Milano Santagiulia Ice Hockey Arena on Saturday night, it became clear how serious the situation was.
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“He’s a tough kid, he didn’t say anything, he didn’t scream,” Wilson said. “He didn’t really show any emotions at all.”
Fiala was taken off the ice on a stretcher — face down as emergency personnel avoided moving him too much — and transported to the hospital. His teammates were fighting back tears as they watched. Shortly after, the Swiss Ice Hockey Federation announced that Fiala suffered a lower-leg injury that will rule him out of the rest of the Olympics. A league source confirmed to The Athletic on Saturday that Fiala underwent surgery and will “likely” miss the remainder of the NHL season.
Canada’s players joined their distraught opponents in tapping their sticks on the ice as Fiala was carted off.
“Very hard,” Swiss forward Nico Hischier said. “Stuff like that is hard to watch. Kevin’s a big part of our group. In hockey, stuff like that happens. But it’s tough to watch and didn’t look great. I hope it’s better than it looked.”
Wilson has a reputation for delivering big — and occasionally injurious — hits. But this was a fluke play, as neither player was even trying to throw a hit in the final minutes of a blowout. “There was no intention, for sure,” Hischier said.
Wilson seemed a little shaken up afterward, too.
“It’s the Olympic Games, and I feel terrible that he may not be able to keep playing,” Wilson said. “Just sending his family and him my best. You never want to see a guy go down — in a tournament like this, especially. Sucks for the country, for their team. Just wishing him a quick recovery.”
The incident left Los Angeles Kings and Canada defenseman Drew Doughty with mixed emotions. Canada had just put together an impressive win against a very good team — Switzerland is the second-ranked team in the world thanks to its back-to-back silver medals at the World Championship — but Doughty saw an important part of his NHL team go down.
Fiala has 18 goals and 22 assists in 56 games with the Kings this season.
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“It was tough to see,” Doughty said. “Wish Kevin the best. Hopefully he’s going to be fine quick. We need that guy on my team back home, big-time. That’s not something I wanted, obviously, to happen. I’m going to go find him right now and see how he’s doing.”
The play conjured unfortunate memories of the Islanders’ John Tavares injuring his knee during the Sochi Olympics in 2014, which cost him the rest of the season. The risk of injury is one of the reasons the NHL has been lukewarm to the idea of shutting down its season to accommodate the Olympics every four years.
But the players feel the risk is clearly worth it for the chance to represent their countries and compete for Olympic gold.
“I think every single player is gonna tell you they want to come play,” Doughty said. “Unfortunately, that happened, but hopefully he recovers quick.”
It was a brutal day for Switzerland, which lost not only the game but three key players. Before Fiala was hurt, captain Roman Josi’s defensive partner, Andrea Glauser, left the game with a concussion after taking a big hit from Canada’s Connor McDavid. And former NHLer Denis Malgin also left the game with a shoulder injury suffered in the first period. Swiss coach Patrick Fischer said both will miss time, but it’s unclear for how long.
“Some huge players for us,” Josi said. “Players that play big minutes and have big roles on this team. It was tough.”
On Saturday, Kings teammate Adrian Kempe spoke about Fiala after Sweden’s 5-3 win over Slovakia.
“Obviously it’s sad and it sucks for him and for us (Kings). Sad for him,” he said. “It’s something that we’ve been looking forward (to) our whole life coming to play here (in the Olympics) and going down like that, it’s really tough for him personally and for us as a team, how much he means to our team back home in L.A. Yeah, 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.”
— Pierre LeBrun contributed to this report.
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Mark Lazerus is a senior NHL writer for The Athletic based out of Chicago. He has covered the Blackhawks and the league at large for 13 seasons for The Athletic and the Chicago Sun-Times. He has been named one of the top three columnists in the country twice in the past three years by the Associated Press Sports Editors. Follow Mark on Twitter @MarkLazerus
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