Kevin Fiala: A Complete Life Story — The Swiss Sniper Who Found His Home in Los Angeles

Born July 22, 1996, St. Gallen, Switzerland

There are hockey players who are good. There are hockey players who are electric. And then there is Kevin Fiala — a left winger built like a sports car, programmed for offense, raised in the Swiss Alps by a Czech father who handed him a stick before he could properly hold one, and set loose on the NHL with a game so creative and unpredictable that even the best defensemen in the world occasionally just watch him and shake their heads.

He is 29 years old as of this writing. He has played for three NHL franchises over a decade-long career — Nashville, Minnesota, Los Angeles — each step shaping him, each setback steeling him. He survived a broken femur that ended his first playoff appearance on a stretcher. He survived a trade out of Minnesota despite producing 85 points in a season. He survived the adjustment to a new city, a new system, and the weight of a seven-year, $55.125 million contract that made him the cornerstone of the Los Angeles Kings’ offensive rebuild.

And on February 13, 2026 — yesterday — he was carried off the ice on a stretcher at the 2026 Milan Winter Olympics after colliding with Tom Wilson of Canada in the third period of Switzerland’s quarterfinal game, suffering an apparent left leg injury that sent immediate shockwaves through the Kings organization and the Swiss national program.

Fiala has been here before — on a stretcher, on a timeline, facing the long patience of recovery. The first time it happened, in 2017, he came back better than he left. His story is, in many ways, one of repeatedly proving that the setback is not the end. This is the complete story of Kevin Fiala, from Uzwil, Switzerland, to the Olympic ice of Milan.

Kevin Fiala Early Life: Uzwil, Switzerland and a Czech Hockey Family

Kevin Fiala was born on July 22, 1996, in St. Gallen, the largest city in eastern Switzerland, in the canton of the same name — a region of rolling hills, the Rhine valley, and the southern shore of Lake Constance. But he was raised in Uzwil, a smaller municipality just outside the city, where his family had established their home.

His parents were Czech, not Swiss — a detail that speaks to the international mobility of professional hockey families in Europe. His father, Jan Fiala, was a professional ice hockey player who played in the lower levels of Swiss professional hockey, and who transitioned into coaching after his playing days. His mother’s details remain private; Kevin has kept her largely out of his public narrative.

From his own website, Kevin’s description of his childhood is straightforward and revealing: “I was born and raised in Uzwil, Switzerland, to Czech parents who instilled in me a love for ice hockey from an early age. My father, Jan Fiala, was not only an ice hockey player himself but also my first coach, guiding me as I took my first steps on the ice. Ice hockey has always been more than a sport in our family — it’s been a way of life.”

A father who had been a professional hockey player, who became his son’s first coach on the ice, who understood both the technical demands and the psychological architecture of a career in professional hockey — that is an extraordinary advantage for a young player. Jan Fiala gave Kevin not just instruction but context: what the game requires, what it takes away, what it gives back, and what it means to make it to the highest level from a hockey culture that has never produced NHL stars the way Canada, Russia, or Sweden have.

Kevin was skating almost before he could walk. He was playing organized hockey by the time he was five years old. And he was doing it in the Swiss system — a system that is rigorous, technically demanding, and deeply respectful of the European hockey tradition of skill, skating, and puck movement over the North American emphasis on size and physical dominance.

He had, even as a child, the specific quality that the best small-to-medium-sized European forwards all share: an extraordinary feel for space on the ice, the ability to see two plays ahead, and the skating speed to punish defensemen who give him even a centimeter of room. Scouting reports from his teenage years describe him as having “quick legs and explosive acceleration,” “soft hands,” “good stickhandling and brilliant puck-control,” and “a wealthy arsenal of shooting tools which, combined with his creativity and finishing abilities, makes him the player you turn to if you need a goal.”

He was also, those early reports note, “not known for his defensive play” — which is, for many elite European offensive forwards, a long-term development project rather than a fixed limitation.

He grew up speaking German (the primary language of eastern Switzerland) and Czech, and later added English — building the multilingual comfort that European NHLers routinely need in the locker room.

Junior Career: Swiss Leagues, Quebec, and the Malmö Redhawks

Before the world outside Switzerland knew Kevin Fiala’s name, he was cutting his teeth in the Swiss junior leagues, then taking the ambitious step that many European prospects eventually choose: leaving home to test themselves in a more competitive environment.

Swiss Junior Leagues (2010–2012): Fiala came through the Swiss youth hockey system, earning a reputation as one of the most creative and offensively dangerous forwards of his age group in the country. He was not the biggest player on any ice surface — he stands 5 feet 10 inches, 185 pounds — but he consistently made up for the size differential with speed, skill, and the particular fearlessness of someone who has been skating his whole life and trusts his body to get him out of tight spaces.

Quebec International Pee-Wee Hockey Tournament (2009): Long before his professional career began, Fiala played in the most prestigious youth hockey tournament in the world, representing the Swiss Eastern team at the 2009 edition of this legendary Quebec City event, where future NHL stars from across North America and Europe regularly appear. It was an early glimpse of international competition, and it demonstrated his family’s commitment to giving him every possible developmental opportunity.

Malmö Redhawks Junior Team, Sweden (2012–2013): At 16, Fiala made the significant decision to leave Switzerland and move to Sweden — one of the world’s premier hockey nations — to play for the Malmö Redhawks junior team. Swedish hockey at the junior level is among the most competitive in the world, and the move was a deliberate upgrading of his competitive environment. He split the 2012–13 season between the J18 Elit and the J18 Allsvenskan (the top two tiers of Swedish under-18 hockey) and the J20 SuperElit (the top Swedish under-20 league). He thrived.

HV71, Jönköping, Sweden (2013–2015): His next step was even more significant. He joined HV71 — one of the most respected clubs in the Swedish Hockey League — where he split time between the J20 SuperElit junior team and the senior Swedish Hockey League roster. Making the SHL at 17 is an extraordinary accomplishment; the SHL is the second-strongest domestic hockey league in the world after the NHL, and its players are among the most skilled and competitive in professional hockey.

His SHL debut came during the 2013 European Trophy. His Head Coach, Ulf Dahlén — himself a former NHL forward — praised him publicly after that debut. He tied for the lead among all under-18 SHL players for points, with 11, and was a finalist for the SHL’s Rookie of the Year award. In the junior league that season, he had been even more dominant: 10 goals and 25 points in 27 games.

By the start of the 2013–14 season, the NHL world had noticed. Scouting services were assessing him as a top-three player available in the upcoming 2014 NHL Entry Draft. The hockey world was coming to Uzwil — or rather, to wherever Kevin Fiala was playing.

The 2014 NHL Entry Draft: 11th Overall to Nashville

The 2014 NHL Entry Draft was held on June 27, 2014, at the Wells Fargo Center in Philadelphia. It was a draft that featured several future NHL superstars — Aaron Ekblad went first overall, Sam Reinhart went second, Leon Draisaitl went third. With the 11th overall pick, the Nashville Predators selected Kevin Fiala.

Many scouting services had projected him as a top-five pick — some as high as third — based on his SHL performance and the raw quality of his skill set. The Nashville front office had done their homework. They knew what they were getting: a highly skilled European winger with world-class hands, elite skating, and the kind of offensive creativity that couldn’t be coached — either you have it or you don’t, and Kevin Fiala had it.

On July 15, 2014, Nashville signed Fiala to a three-year, entry-level contract. He was 17 years old and a first-round NHL draft pick. He was also not yet ready for the NHL — and to his credit and the Predators’ development credit, everyone understood that.

He returned to HV71 for the start of the 2014–15 season, continuing his development in the SHL. He had 14 points in 20 games — ranking sixth among all junior players in the entire SHL — before being recalled by Nashville’s AHL affiliate, the Milwaukee Admirals, in January 2015.

He made his NHL debut on March 24, 2015, against the Montreal Canadiens. He was 18 years old. He played one playoff game that season as well — a brief taste of what was to come.

Nashville Predators (2015–2019): From Prospect to Playoff Heartbreak

The 2015–16 season was Fiala’s primary developmental year at the professional level. He spent most of it with the Milwaukee Admirals in the AHL, where he finished with 50 points in 66 games — an excellent pace that confirmed his offensive ability was translating to North American professional hockey. He also scored his first NHL goal on January 14, 2016, against Connor Hellebuyck of the Winnipeg Jets — a moment every hockey player remembers clearly.

By the 2016–17 season, Fiala had earned a spot on Nashville’s opening night NHL roster. He appeared in 54 games and scored 11 goals — a respectable NHL rookie season for a 20-year-old who was still learning the game’s North American dimensions: the smaller ice surface, the tighter defensive structure, the physical battles along the boards that European leagues play differently.

Then came the 2017 playoffs. And everything changed.

April 26, 2017: The Broken Femur

Nashville swept the Chicago Blackhawks in the first round — and Fiala contributed two goals, including the overtime game winner in Game 3. He was electric. He was playing the best hockey of his young career. He was, by any assessment, on the verge of a breakout playoff run.

In the first game of the second round against the St. Louis Blues, on April 26, 2017, in the second period, Fiala’s left knee collided with the end boards after a check by St. Louis Blues defenseman Robert Bortuzzo. He went down immediately. The arena went quiet. He was removed from the ice on a stretcher, transported by waiting ambulance to Barnes-Jewish Hospital in St. Louis, and diagnosed with a fractured left femur — one of the most serious bone injuries in hockey.

The femur is the largest, strongest bone in the human body. Breaking it means surgery, extended recovery, rehabilitation, and the patient, difficult work of rebuilding muscle, movement, and trust in your own body. For a 20-year-old whose entire identity was built on explosive skating speed, the injury was not just physical — it was a test of who he was.

He passed.

He returned for the 2017–18 season, played 50 games, and produced 22 points — slower production than the trajectory his early career had suggested, but the return from a broken femur in less than a full season was itself a statement of character. He also appeared at the 2018 IIHF Men’s World Championship for Switzerland, winning a silver medal — an international result that added to a growing list of tournament appearances with the national team.

On February 25, 2019, with 10 goals and 32 points in 64 games during the 2018–19 season — his most productive NHL campaign to that point — Fiala was traded to the Minnesota Wild in exchange for center Mikael Granlund. The trade that sent Granlund to Nashville and Fiala to Minnesota was, in retrospect, a defining moment for both franchises, and one that looks better for Minnesota as the years have passed.

Minnesota Wild (2019–2022): The Breakout and the Cap Casualty

In Minnesota, Kevin Fiala discovered something that every great offensive player needs: a team built around his specific strengths, and the freedom to play his game. The Wild under general manager Bill Guerin — a former power forward who understood offensive talent — committed to Fiala in a way Nashville had not quite managed.

He re-signed with Minnesota on September 11, 2019, agreeing to a two-year extension. The COVID-shortened 2019–20 season produced 22 points in 45 games — a solid pace. The 2020–21 season, also shortened by the pandemic, brought 25 points in 42 games.

And then came 2021–22 — the season that changed Kevin Fiala’s professional life entirely.

The 85-Point Season

In the 2021–22 season, Fiala played all 82 games for the Minnesota Wild and produced:

33 goals. 52 assists. 85 points. A plus-23 rating. 262 shots on goal. 7 game-winning goals.

He was a point-per-game player — the standard that separates elite offensive producers from good ones. He finished 10th in the NHL in even-strength points with 67. He was the engine of the Wild’s offense, and by the end of the season, he was one of the best wingers in the Western Conference. He also added 3 assists in 6 Stanley Cup Playoff games before Minnesota was eliminated by St. Louis.

The Wild knew they were about to lose him. Their salary cap situation — poisoned for years by the buyouts of Zach Parise and Ryan Suter (bought out from the matching 13-year, $98 million contracts they had signed in 2012) — left them unable to afford the contract that a player with an 85-point season commands. General Manager Bill Guerin was honest about it: “He had 85 points. The kid had a great year. We don’t have cap space.”

On June 29, 2022, the Minnesota Wild traded Fiala to the Los Angeles Kings in exchange for defenseman prospect Brock Faber and the 19th overall pick in the 2022 NHL Draft. The trade was completed, and the very next day — June 30, 2022 — the Kings signed Fiala to a seven-year, $55.125 million contract with an AAV of $7.875 million, running through the 2028–29 season.

He was 25 years old. He had just received the largest contract in his career and been entrusted with being a cornerstone of a franchise trying to take the next step. He was moving from the Twin Cities to Los Angeles. He had just had his best professional season. The world was wide open.

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Los Angeles Kings (2022–Present): The Crown Jewel of the Kings’ Rebuild

The Los Angeles Kings were, in the summer of 2022, a franchise in the middle of an ambitious rebuilding project. They had the veteran foundation of Anze Kopitar — one of the most respected players in franchise history — combined with an exciting young core that included Quinton Byfield, Adrian Kempe, Arthur Kaliyev, and a strong defensive group. What they needed was a proven elite winger to anchor the top of their forward corps. Kevin Fiala was exactly that player.

His first season in Los Angeles — 2022–23 — was one of adjustment. He played 76 games, scored 24 goals and added 49 assists for 73 points, leading the team in assists. He also received his first and, to date, only NHL All-Star Game selection on January 5, 2023 — a recognition of his place among the best offensive players in the league.

The 2023–24 season was his best as a King: 35 goals, 25 assists, 60 points in 76 games. The goal total was confirmation of what Nashville had always projected when they drafted him 11th overall — that this was an elite goal scorer as well as a setup man.

In the 2024–25 season, production dipped slightly: 14 goals and 13 assists for 27 points in a 54-game season impacted by various factors including the Olympic pause.

In the 2025–26 season (current), he appeared in 56 games before the NHL Olympic break, producing 18 goals and 22 assists for 40 points, averaging 19:07 of ice time per game. He was on pace for another productive Kings season — and he was representing Switzerland at the 2026 Milan Olympics.

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Contract and Money: The Numbers

Kevin Fiala’s current contract — signed with the Kings on June 30, 2022 — is a seven-year deal worth $55.125 million with an AAV of $7.875 million, running through the 2028–29 season, at which point he will be 33 years old and an unrestricted free agent.

His season-by-season salary structure:

• 2022–23: $7,625,000
• 2023–24: $8,125,000
• 2024–25: $8,375,000
• 2025–26: $8,375,000
• 2026–27: $7,875,000
• 2027–28: $7,875,000
• 2028–29: $7,875,000

His career contract value across all four professional contracts totals approximately $69 million in NHL earnings — a figure that places him comfortably among the top-earning Swiss-born players in NHL history. His estimated net worth is approximately $12–15 million.

He has also made investments outside hockey: in November 2023, he made an undisclosed investment in CARE, a Swiss evidence-based preventive medicine health tech startup, and serves as a brand ambassador for the company — aligning his financial activity with his Swiss roots and his genuine interest in health and longevity.

International Career: The Swiss National Team

Kevin Fiala’s international career with the Swiss Men’s National Ice Hockey Team has been one of the most consistent threads of his professional life, and the dimension of his career that is perhaps most underappreciated outside Europe.

He played his first major international event at 17, representing Switzerland at the IIHF Under-18 Men’s World Championship in 2014. That same season — becoming only the third player in history to compete in the U18 Worlds, the World Junior Championship, and the Senior Men’s World Championship in a single calendar year — he appeared at both the World Juniors and the senior Worlds, a remarkable achievement for a teenager.

His Swiss national team appearances include:

2014 IIHF Under-18 Men’s World Championship 2014 IIHF World Junior Championship 2014 IIHF Men’s World Championship 2015 IIHF World Junior Championship 2015 IIHF Men’s World Championship 2018 IIHF Men’s World Championship — Silver Medal (the highest point of Swiss hockey in recent history) 2019 IIHF Men’s World Championship 2026 Winter Olympics (Milan-Cortina) — his first Winter Olympics, as the NHL began sending players back to the Games for the first time in years

In total international competition for Switzerland, Fiala has accumulated 36 points (15G–21A) in 44 appearances — numbers that reflect his consistent elite production in international competition regardless of the system or the partner playing alongside him.

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February 13, 2026: The Olympic Injury — History Repeating

On February 13, 2026 — yesterday, the same day as this writing — Kevin Fiala was competing for Switzerland in a men’s ice hockey quarterfinal game at the 2026 Milan-Cortina Winter Olympics against Canada.

In the third period, Fiala got tangled up with Tom Wilson of Team Canada — the Washington Capitals power forward known for his physical, sometimes bruising style of play. The collision resulted in Fiala going down and, in a scene that will be intensely familiar to anyone who watched the 2017 playoffs, he was carried off the ice on a stretcher.

The injury is described as an apparent left leg injury. It is not yet clear whether bones are involved, whether the injury will affect his status for the remainder of the Olympics, or what the timeline for his return to the Kings will be once the NHL resumes play in late February.

The most haunting symmetry: it is the same leg — the left — that he fractured at the 2017 playoffs in almost identical circumstances: a collision involving the lower body, a stretcher exit, an Olympic or playoff moment cut cruelly short.

Fiala came back from 2017. He will almost certainly come back from this. But the image of him on a stretcher again — in a Swiss jersey this time, at his first Olympics — is one of those sports moments that lands with the specific weight of an undeserved narrative repetition.

The Kings have not yet made a formal statement on his status. The Swiss team’s medical staff is assessing the injury. The hockey world is watching.

Jessica Ljung Fiala: The Partner Who Keeps Him Grounded (and Roasted)

Kevin Fiala’s personal life is less internationally famous than his hockey career — but to NHL fans and hockey media, it has become one of the more delightfully entertaining subplots in recent seasons, almost entirely because of his wife.

Jessica Ljung is Swedish — a detail that completes a certain European symmetry in Fiala’s life, having spent years in the Swedish Hockey League before the NHL. Kevin and Jessica were together for several years before he publicly announced their engagement in June 2021, during his final season in Minnesota.

They married on August 8, 2023, in a private ceremony. Their daughter, Masie-Mae Fiala, was born in May 2024 — Jessica’s pregnancy had been confirmed publicly earlier that year, and the arrival of Masie-Mae was greeted with characteristic warmth on the couple’s social media.

Jessica Fiala’s social media presence has taken on a life of its own among hockey fans — particularly fans who knew the couple from the Minnesota years. She is, in the words of a widely read profile on Hockey Wilderness, “one of the funniest WAGs in the professional world,” combining genuine affection for her husband with a lovingly precise ability to document and broadcast his most endearing peculiarities.

The documented Fiala household absurdities include: Kevin ordering a paddleboard from Amazon and immediately inflating it in the entryway before getting to the beach, then falling off it three consecutive times. Kevin ordering increasingly obscure Amazon items — including a picnic basket engineered with a complex repacking system he has no patience to operate. Kevin going out on the town and leaving a trail of abandoned clothing from the front door to the bedroom. Kevin, apparently, being entirely impervious to hangovers — while Jessica survived hers in a Target parking lot with popsicles.

“Kevin seems to be an eternal optimist, always lopping around like a golden retriever puppy,” the Hockey Wilderness profile notes. “Jessica is always lovingly annoyed by his antics.” It is, by the evidence of every available social media post, a marriage of genuine love, genuine friendship, and the specific comic chemistry of two people who find each other endlessly entertaining.

Jessica was present at the Kings’ playoff games in 2024, posting her reactions to Kevin’s big moments. When Kevin scored in a crucial game against the Edmonton Oilers in the 2024 playoffs, her four-word reaction went viral among Kings fans.

She also, in a detail that belongs in the Hockey Wife Hall of Fame, apparently reacted with pure joy to a custom Masie-Mae Fiala Funko Pop! figure — a tiny plastic doll in the likeness of their infant daughter, which Kevin apparently commissioned. “This is the best ever,” she wrote, which is both a mother’s natural response to a Funko Pop of her baby and a very specific kind of happiness.

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Fiala’s Friends, CHLA, and the Charitable Work

Kevin Fiala is not just a hockey player with a funny wife and a paddleboard he can’t stay on. He is also, by the evidence of his sustained community work, a genuinely caring member of the Los Angeles community who has made the Kings’ charitable ecosystem a real part of his life.

His primary initiative is “Fiala’s Friends” — a program run in collaboration with the Kings Care Foundation that hosts patients from Children’s Hospital Los Angeles (CHLA) at Kings home games. He also makes multiple hospital visits throughout the year to CHLA, spending time with children who are undergoing treatment. He helps organize youth hockey camps that raise money for both the Kings Care Foundation and CHLA, combining skill development for young players with fundraising for children in medical need.

He also supports the Make-A-Wish Foundation, Adopt-A-Family, and other charitable organizations in the Los Angeles area.

On his own website, Kevin frames this work with the same language he uses to describe his hockey career: “Sharing my passion for hockey and giving back is at the heart of who I am. I organize youth hockey camps to help young players develop their skills and love for the game, while also supporting important causes through charity events.”

The son of a hockey father who became a coach. A man who builds something and gives some of it back. The arc makes sense.

Physical Profile, Playing Style, and the Skating

Kevin Fiala stands 5 feet 10 inches and weighs approximately 185 pounds — not large by NHL standards, but not undersized either. He plays left wing on the first or second line, typically deployed at five-on-five and on the power play. He wears number 22 with the Los Angeles Kings — the same number he wore in Minnesota and that has become his professional identity.

His skating is legitimately elite — the kind of acceleration that allows a player to be half a step behind a play and then suddenly, improbably, be first to the puck. He has a quick, compact stride that generates speed without telegraphing it, which is what makes him so difficult to defend: you don’t see him coming until he’s already there.

His hands — described since his teenage years as “soft” — give him the ability to receive passes in traffic, handle the puck through tight spaces, and finish in ways that look easy but aren’t. His shot has a quick release that makes it effective from multiple positions, and he is comfortable shooting off either foot, from any angle, in traffic or from distance.

His defensive game has always been the area requiring the most development — not because he is lazy but because his instinct is always to think about offense first. The Kings’ system under Head Coach Jim Hiller (who took over from Todd McLellan in 2023) has given him more defensive responsibility, and his plus/minus numbers across the Kings years reflect an ongoing effort to be a complete player rather than just a pure offensive weapon.

Career Statistics at a Glance

NHL Career Regular Season Totals (through February 2026, NHL games only):

Through February 2026 (before Olympic break)

Career NHL totals (approximate): 600+ games, 190+ goals, 230+ assists, 420+ points

Career Playoff totals: Multiple appearances with Nashville and Minnesota; 2024 Kings playoff run (first-round appearance).

International: 44 appearances for Switzerland, 36 points, including 2018 World Championship Silver Medal.

Awards: NHL All-Star Game (2023). SHL Rookie of the Year Finalist (2014). 2018 IIHF Men’s World Championship Silver Medal.

Kevin Fiala Today: February 14, 2026

As of Valentine’s Day 2026, Kevin Fiala is 29 years old, lying in what is presumably a medical facility in Milan, Italy, waiting on test results for the left leg injury he suffered yesterday while competing for Switzerland at the Olympics. His wife Jessica and daughter Masie-Mae are presumably in contact. The Kings organization is waiting for word on his status. The Swiss team is without its most dangerous forward for whatever remains of the Olympic tournament, if anything remains.

He is also, by the hard evidence of a 10-year NHL career that began with a broken femur and kept going anyway, a man who knows better than most people what recovery looks like. He has been here before — not at the Olympics, but on a stretcher in St. Louis in April 2017, in a world where the playoffs were over and the question was whether his left femur would heal straight and whether his skating would ever return to the level that had made him an 11th overall pick.

It did. He went to Minnesota and had 85 points. He went to Los Angeles and earned $55 million. He went to the Olympics and got injured on the ice again.

He will come back from this, too. That much seems certain — because Kevin Fiala has never been the kind of man who stays on the stretcher any longer than he absolutely has to.

The Kings need him back. Switzerland needed him last night. And Masie-Mae Fiala needs her father home from Milan, which is the most important destination of all.

Kevin Fiala is a left winger for the Los Angeles Kings of the NHL. He is represented by the Kings at LA Kings Hockey (@LAKings on social media). His charitable initiative Fiala’s Friends partners with Children’s Hospital Los Angeles and the Kings Care Foundation. He is married to Jessica Ljung Fiala and they have one daughter, Masie-Mae. His Olympic status following the February 13, 2026 injury is ongoing — check NHL.com and Kings.com for updates.