Los Angeles Kings acquire Kevin Fiala from Minnesota Wild, extend him for seven years

The Los Angeles Kings acquired the rights to restricted free agent winger Kevin Fiala from the Minnesota Wild on Wednesday afternoon in exchange for their 2022 first round pick and Brock Faber.

According to sources, the #mnwild have traded the rights to pending restricted free agent Kevin Fiala to the #lakings for their 2022 first-round pick and University of Minnesota captain Brock Faber

— Michael Russo (@RussoHockey) June 29, 2022

Along with the trade, the Kings also signed Fiala to a contract extension. The extension is for seven years, and while the cap hit hasn’t been confirmed, it’s reported to come in at around $7.9 million.

Fiala was a part of the Minnesota Wild organization since the 2019 trade deadline when he was acquired from the Nashville Predators for Mikael Granlund. Fiala has become a prolific offensive player since joining the Wild, scoring 79 goals and 186 points in 215 games for Minnesota, including a career high 33 goals and 85 points in 2021-22.

Fiala was on a one year contract with a $5.1 million AAV signed after an arbitration filing, and was due for a big extension that the Wild couldn’t afford with the impending cap penalties from Zach Parise and Ryan Suter’s buyouts in the 2021 offseason. As a result, Fiala was a player the Wild were shopping around, and the Kings took advantage of that with their draft capital, prospect pool, and cap space.

Faber is a defenseman that the Kings selected in the second round of the 2020 NHL Entry Draft. He scored two goals and 14 points in 32 games for the University of Minnesota this season, as well as one assist in four games with Team USA at the Olympic Games in Beijing earlier this year.

The Wild also acquired a first round draft pick in the trade, which is the Kings’ own selection in the 2022 NHL Entry Draft slated at 19th overall.

While the trade doesn’t clear up the Wild’s cap problem entirely, they have one less contract to worry about with a bit more than $7 million in cap space, with the only big free agent now being goaltender Marc-Andre Fleury.

After the trade and extension, the Kings will have just under $12 million in cap space with five unrestricted free agents and seven restricted free agents currently on their roster, although none of them will likely come with a high price tag.