June 29, 2022, will forever be a day that changed the landscape of the Minnesota Wild and Los Angeles Kings franchises. The two teams engaged in a blockbuster trade that sent Kevin Fiala to Los Angeles for Brock Faber and the 19th overall selection in the 2022 Draft. Now nearly two years later, both teams are happy with how the trade panned out.
Los Angeles Kings, A
The Kings’ side of the trade is not as exciting as Minnesota’s but it is still great. At the time, the team had Drew Doughty, Matt Roy, Brandt Clarke, Jordan Spence, and Sean Durzi on the right side of the defense, along with Faber. While that is a great problem to have, the team needed to move a right-handed defenseman, and Faber was the odd man out.
Hindsight is 20/20, but Faber was the consensus among the fanbase on who should be sent out. Also, sending him to his hometown Wild was an obvious move. The Kings needed star power at the top of their forward core, and the available Fiala was an obvious trade target. He had 33 goals and 85 points in 82 games with the Wild, an exact fit for what the young Kings team needed.
Now with over 125 games as a King under his belt, Fiala has proven he can do the same in Los Angeles. Last season he had 23 goals and 72 points in 69 games, while this season he has 21 goals and 57 points in 65 games. He has been phenomenal in the top six, and for someone making just $7.875 million annually, he is great value.
Of course, the price given up was a lot, but the trade has worked out well for the Kings. If the team had not made that trade, Faber would likely be sitting in the minor leagues right now, fighting for a spot in the NHL. Additionally, whoever would have been taken with that draft selection would be playing in some random other league where they would not be contributing to the current roster.
Minnesota Wild, A+
In revisiting the trade, the context must be understood. On July 4, 2012, 10 years prior, the Wild signed Zach Parise and Ryan Suter to matching 13-year contracts. The two signings signified a change of culture in Minnesota. However, they failed to ever make a run and ended up buying out Suter and Parise years before the contracts were set to expire. This has resulted in tens of millions in dead cap. This financial situation forced the team to lose rising star Kevin Fiala due to his contract expiring since he would not fit under the salary cap. Despite their known battle with the salary cap, they got quite the haul for him.
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There were two pieces Minnesota received in the trade, and they are both substantial. First was the 19th overall selection which they used to select Liam Ohgren. At the time he was widely considered a top 10 to 20 prospect in the draft, and he has dominated since. In his first season in the Wild organization, he had 11 goals and 20 points in 36 games for Djurgårdens IF of HockeyAllsvenskan. This season, the left winger has 12 goals and 19 points in 26 games in the Swedish Hockey League (SHL).
The SHL is one of the premier professional leagues in all of men’s hockey, so Ohgren’s numbers are very impressive. While he has yet to play a professional game on North American soil, he is cementing himself as a future star in the Wild organization. He fits the team’s timeline well, which is set to take place in the next few seasons once Parise and Suter’s buyouts expire. While this season has not gone how many Minnesota fans have hoped, they have a lot to look forward to in the coming years.
The main part of the trade has become Faber, and for good reason. The right-handed defenseman has been nothing short of a star for the Wild since entering the organization. Last season he captained the University of Minnesota where he had four goals and 27 points in 38 games. He was the top defenseman for one of the best schools in the United States and signed his entry-level contract in the spring.
In his rookie campaign this season he has only improved. He has cemented himself in the NHL with a full-time role as a defensive defenseman who happens to have six goals and 38 points in 66 games. In the year of Connor Bedard, Faber has positioned himself as the likely runner-up in the Calder Trophy race, the award given to the top rookie player each season. While Faber is highly unlikely to win, a second-place finish would be impressive in a season with other top rookies such as Luke Hughes, Logan Cooley, Marco Rossi, and more. While he has yet to play a full season as a professional, there is no doubt Faber is a bonafide star, poised to have a long NHL career.
With the options available at the time, the Kings made a smart, fair trade that has helped them in the short and long term. They brought in Fiala, an elite winger, and extended him on a long-term deal where he is set to help them win a Stanley Cup. For the Wild, they got great value in a trade that could have been very lopsided, and they have set themselves up well in the long term by adding two young assets with enormous potential.