What are the Kings plans after Kevin Fiala injury? 

The Los Angeles Kings promise to be one of the more active teams at the NHL trade deadline in March, as it’s imperative the team make the playoffs in Anze Kopitar’s last season before retirement.

After Kevin Fiala suffered a season-ending injury playing for Team Switzerland at the Olympics, Los Angeles is more or less back to square one, even after landing Artemi Panarin in a blockbuster trade with the New York Rangers.

Now, with fewer assets to trade after sending Liam Greentree to New York, the Kings will need to find a way to add another impact scoring forward to a team that already struggles on the offensive end of the rink now that Fiala is no longer an option.

On Thursday’s episode of Daily Faceoff LIVE, host Tyler Yaremchuk and co-host and former NHL goaltender Carter Hutton were joined by NHL insider David Pagnotta to discuss what Ken Holland could do to replace his injured scorer.

Tyler Yaremchuk: With injuries in these kinds of tournaments, it’s not really a matter of if, it’s a matter of who and when. And that who and when was Kevin Fiala on Switzerland, and keeping it looped into the NHL, what do you think the Kings plan is going to be here now that they know Fiala’s done for the rest of the season? Are they going to sit there and go ‘Alright, thank god we got Artemi Panarin,’ or are they going to go try to keep adding to that forward group?

David Pagnotta: They wanted to add more after adding Panarin. Even if Fiala was healthy and if nothing went down. So I’ve got to imagine they’re going to amplify their search now. They’ve got cap space, they can add that much more if they throw Fiala on season ending LTIR. I don’t know if it’ll get to that point because I don’t think they’re going to make that huge of a splash or make that many acquisitions, but adding at least one more forward up front. Kenny Holland has mentioned he likes his D-corp. Obviously he’s comfortable with the goaltending. It’s up front that needs some adjustments. And yes, they need a center. They need a top two center at the very least by next season. I don’t know if they necessarily pull that off now.

You can watch the full segment and the rest of the episode here…