Kevin Fiala signed a seven-year, $55.125 million contract with the Los Angeles Kings on Thursday, one day after he was acquired in a trade with the Minnesota Wild. It has an average annual value of $7.875 million.
Fiala was acquired for defenseman prospect Brock Faber and a first-round pick (No. 19) in the 2022 NHL Draft.
Fiala, who could have become a restricted free agent on July 13, had an NHL career high in goals (33), assists (52) and points (85) in 82 games for the Wild this season. The 25-year-old forward also had three assists in six Stanley Cup Playoff games, when Minnesota was eliminated by the St. Louis Blues in the Western Conference First Round.
Wild general manager Bill Guerin said he know he was going to have to trade Fiala, who signed a one-year, $5.1 million contract last offseason to avoid a salary arbitration hearing.
“Yeah I did,” Guerin said Wednesday. “He had 85 points. The kid had a great year. We don’t have [NHL salary] cap space. Honestly, to keep him we’d have to trade three guys or two guys and deplete our team more. Then the following year we’re going to need even more. It just didn’t fit.
“We’ve been down the road a couple times with Kevin already. Hey look, he had a great year and we knew we just were not going to be able to do it. We knew that, they knew that. There’s no sense in just trying to [mess] around and try to fit this and fit that and give them a lowball deal. It’s not going to work. We knew we were going to have to move him.
“We need younger guys. We need guys that don’t make millions and millions of dollars. We just have to do it that way. And I think for long term success as well we have to keep adding to our prospect pool.”
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Selected by the Nashville Predators in the first round (No. 11) of the 2014 NHL Draft, Fiala has 283 points (124 goals, 159 assists) in 419 regular-season games, and 15 points (nine goals, six assists) in 35 playoff games.
Faber recently completed his sophomore season at the University of Minnesota, where he had 14 points (two goals, 12 assists) in 32 games and was named the Big Ten Defensive Player of the Year. The 19-year-old also played for the United States at the 2022 Beijing Olympics, getting one assist in four games.
“I just think that [Faber] was really, really high-end prospect, somebody that we think is not far away from playing at all,” Guerin said. “I know he’s just going back for his third year at [Minnesota], but in all actuality, Brock could probably play sooner than that. But it’ll be a good year for him back there and we’ll cross that bridge at the end of the season. … You can never have too many defensemen.”
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