Ramblings: Canada Defeats Switzerland, Fiala Stretchered Off; Top Frozen Tools Searches Dubois, Panarin (Feb 13)
Ian Gooding
2026-02-14
Men's Olympic hockey is now well underway with many names that you're familiar with from fantasy hockey leagues.
A 5-1 win for Canada over Switzerland on Friday was overshadowed by what appears to be a serious injury suffered by Kevin Fiala late in the third period. The Swiss forward was carried off on a stretcher face down and taken to the hospital after a collision with Tom Wilson. Following the game, the Swiss team announced that Fiala will miss the rest of the Olympic tournament with a lower leg injury. Given how quickly this announcement was made and how bad this injury looked, Fiala will most likely miss NHL games as well.
Wilson's playing style is well-documented, but the hit wasn't particularly dirty. Fiala just appeared to get tangled up with him. Fiala broke his left femur when he was with Nashville, so hopefully this is not the same injury. Unfortunately, this is the downside of allowing NHL players to play in a midseason best-on-best Olympic tournament, as it has both real-life and fantasy implications. The Kings are already struggling to score (more on that later), so being without their second-leading scorer in both goals (18) and points (40) is a blow, even with the recent acquisition of Artemi Panarin.
Back to the game… Nathan MacKinnon and Connor McDavid led Canada with a goal and two assists each. On paper, the "Mack" line with Macklin Celebrini seems to resemble Gretzky and Lemieux in 1987 or the US basketball Dream Team of 1992. A line with that much firepower could be impossible for any team to stop. McDavid's six points in two games is the most ever by a player in the first two games of the Olympics, while Celebrini does not look too young for this tournament with two goals and an assist in two games.
Logan Thompson started for Canada on Friday after Jordan Binnington shut out Czechia in the first game. The Capitals goalie stopped 23 of 24 shots in the win. Coach Jon Cooper has kept his goaltending announcements close to the vest until game time, so he could start Darcy Kuemper for Sunday's game against France for all we know.
The Binnington vs. Thompson debate is one that Thompson seems to be winning in the court of public opinion. A comparison of the season stats shows Thompson as the better goalie this season, and it's not even close. Binnington still has the equity of being able to come through in the clutch, most recently in backstopping Canada to a 4 Nations win and prior to that with the Blues' 2019 Stanley Cup run. To real-life coaches that counts for something, even if you know who you would start in your fantasy league. Canada's goalies will be on a very short leash in this tournament with no clear-cut #1.
Josh Morrissey missed Friday's game and is also expected to miss Sunday's game against France, but he has not been ruled out for the rest of the tournament. Morrissey's injury status is undisclosed, so it is worth monitoring in case it lingers and drags into the NHL season. Morrissey has been held without a point in his last seven games for the struggling Jets, so perhaps he has been dealing with a lingering issue or a while. Travis Sanheim entered the Canadian lineup with Morrissey out.
Seth Jarvis also replaced Brad Marchand in Canada's lineup on Friday, which was believed to allow Marchand to rest. Marchand had also been battling an injury leading up to the tournament.
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Czechia took down France by a score of 6-3 on Friday, but it wasn't that easy a victory. France put a scare into the Czechs in the second period, scoring three goals in five minutes to take a 3-2 lead at one point. In the end the better team prevailed, as Czechia carried the play as expected.
Despite the win, Dan Vladar probably didn't cement himself as the Czech starter in net going forward. Vladar allowed the three goals on just 12 shots in the entire game. The Czechs had Karel Vejmelka on the bench, yet they elected not to make a goalie swap after the second-period hiccup. With Lukas Dostal allowing five goals in the first game against Canada, Vejmelka could receive the next start for Czechia against Switzerland on Sunday. Here's another goalie comparison for you, just for kicks.
Among notable NHLers, David Pastrnak and Martin Necas each had a goal and an assist for Czechia.
Louis Boudon scored two goals and assisted on France's other goal. Boudon recently moved from the ECHL to Liiga in Finland and is not property of an NHL team.
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Juraj Slafkovsky continues to have an impressive Olympic tournament. In Slovakia's 3-2 win over Italy, Slafkovsky assisted on the opening goal scored by Libor Hudacek. Slafkovsky now has four points in two games in the Olympic tournament. He entered the Olympic tournament on a roll with four points and 14 shots over his last four games.
With two wins in two games, Slovakia only needs one point against Sweden to clinch a spot in the quarterfinal.
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Thanks to a 4-1 win on Friday, Finland has now defeated Sweden in two consecutive best-on-best games, with the first win coming at the 4 Nations. The Finns benefitted from four different goal scorers in this game.
With an assist on Friday, Blues rookie Dalibor Dvorsky has three points in two games.
For Sweden, Rasmus Dahlin has three points in two games. He also took seven shots on goal in Friday's game.
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Here are the top Frozen Tools searches from the past week:
I wrote about several of these players last week, so today I'll write about two players that didn't make the list last week.
In his return to the Capitals' lineup on February 5 from an abdomen injury, Dubois scored a power-play goal and added an assist in 17:35 of icetime. In that game, Dubois was on a line with twin towers Tom Wilson and Aliaksei Protas while playing on the second-unit power play. Dubois reached a career high 66 points in his first season with the Capitals last season, so his return should be noteworthy.
Having returned to the lineup just one game before the Olympic break, Dubois has played a grand total of seven games this season. That could mean he is available on your league's waiver wire (25% Yahoo/46% Fantrax). Something to take into account, though: the Capitals have played more games (59) than any other team. That means you might receive less mileage out of Dubois than you would many other available options.
On a side note, PLD's return may result in Justin Sourdif falling down the lineup. In that February 5 game, Sourdif played 14:30 while being held without a point on a line with Ryan Leonard and Anthony Beauvillier. That's something to take into account if you're still hanging on to Sourdif.
A significant reason that the Kings traded for Panarin is that they are lacking in offense. Only three teams have scored fewer goals per game than the Kings (2.61 GF/GP), and all three of those teams are below the playoff bar. As well, only three teams have a worse success rate than the Kings on the power play (16.3%). Prior to acquiring Panarin, the Kings would have been overmatched offensively in any playoff series and would have had to rely on Darcy Kuemper to be a standout. That's a lot of pressure, especially when the possibility of yet another first-round matchup with the Oilers looms.
Acquiring Panarin does not fill what will be a gaping hole at center with Anze Kopitar set to retire at the end of the season. However, players on pace for 90 points don't grow on trees, and the acquisition cost (Liam Greentree and a third-round pick) was not overwhelming. In addition, a potential Fiala long-term injury could thrust Panarin into even more of a pressure-packed role.
Fantasy Take: Panarin Chooses to be Traded to the Kings
Panarin should help many of the Kings' top scorers, and he shouldn't really lose any value in moving from a struggling Rangers team to LA. Although the Kings will be able to practice before they return to action in late February, Panarin may need a bit of time to adjust to his new team. In the end, his fantasy value should remain largely unchanged with the Kings, although we'll have to see how that all plays out.
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Happy Valentines Day, for those who celebrate! Follow me on X @Ian_Gooding and Bluesky @goodsfantasyhockey.bsky.social