The Department of Player Safety has announced it will hold a hearing today with Minnesota Wild forward Kevin Fiala to determine supplemental discipline for his hit on Los Angeles Kings defenseman Matt Roy. Fiala drove Roy hard into the boards from behind, receiving a five-minute major and game misconduct for the play.
The Kings had to help Roy off the ice and he did not return. An injury will be taken into account when the hearing occurs, which is very likely to result in a suspension of some sort. Fiala does not have any history of suspension.
Minnesota will have to find a short-term replacement for their star winger, who had already scored in the game. Fiala is coming off an outstanding 2019-20 season where he scored 54 points in 64 games, but has been snakebitten to start the year. Despite generating 30 shots on net, he has just three goals and no assists.
It’s interesting the NHL takes injury into account in discipline. On the ice (drawing blood as somehow a metric for a serious high sticking incident) and off the ice.
I can understand if there was intent and/or there is a history of conduct like that but there was neither, it was a bang bang play going for the puck. As soon as he realized what happened he immediately went to checking on him
problem was the push. he didn’t need to do it.