LOS ANGELES (AP) — Kevin Fiala had the perfect bounce-back game after being scratched one night earlier for violating a team rule.
The Los Angeles Kings' forward had a goal and an assist in Wednesday night's 6-3 victory over the Vegas Golden Knights.
Fiala was a healthy scratch Tuesday at San Jose after missing a team meeting when his alarm didn't go off. He said his iPhone was broken and he tried to use his iPad as an alarm, which didn't work.
“We'll never do that again,” Fiala said. "I was lucky to have a game today and not in like three or four days. I think it was easier to let go and to have a good game today. And hopefully we can all forget it now.”
Coach Jim Hiller said before the game that he had talked with Fiala, and that both had moved on from the incident.
The healthy scratch though came during what was a bad four-day stretch for Fiala. He was benched during the third period of last Saturday's game against Utah after picking up two penalties that gave him five minors in five games.
“It might look like, ‘Oh, he got benched, and now he misses (a meeting).’ I’m not worried about Kevin. Kevin’ll get it back,” Hiller said. “There’s nothing malicious with anything Kevin did. Kevin is a team guy. He wants the team to have success. Sometimes he has problems controlling his emotions and taking penalties. But it’s nothing that he’s doing purposefully, I was happy to see him rewarded tonight.”
Fiala got on the scoresheet midway through the second period when he assisted on Anze Kopitar's goal to extend Los Angeles' lead to 4-0.
Fiala then scored his third power-play goal of the season 6:23 into the third period to give the Kings a 5-0 advantage.
“He’s the game breaker. We need him to get on the scoresheet," captain Anze Kopitar said. "We want to get him on the power play and get him chances. For him to get a couple of points tonight, it’s sure it’s going to be good for him.”
Fiala has five goals and eight points in nine games. After having his third career 70-point campaign with 29 goals and 73 points last season, he admitted to putting too much pressure on himself.
“You always want to be better than last year. The real answer is it’s tough sometimes," he said. "Mentally, sometimes you just try to do too much or think too much about goals because all those expectations The simple thing is just to be in the moment and, just to take it game-by-game. Sometimes it’s not that easy. I struggled a little bit this season with that. And hopefully with this it can help me to just take it game-by-game and stay in the moment and control what I can control.”
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AP NHL: https://apnews.com/hub/nhl
Joe Reedy, The Associated Press
