Kevin Fiala returns to Kings' lineup with goal, assist after being scratched for missing meeting

LOS ANGELES (AP) — Kevin Fiala had the perfect bounce-back game after being scratched one night earlier for violating a team rule.

The Los Angeles Kings' forward had a goal and an assist in Wednesday night's 6-3 victory over the Vegas Golden Knights.

Fiala was a healthy scratch Tuesday at San Jose after missing a team meeting when his alarm didn't go off. He said his iPhone was broken and he tried to use his iPad as an alarm, which didn't work.

“We'll never do that again,” Fiala said. "I was lucky to have a game today and not in like three or four days. I think it was easier to let go and to have a good game today. And hopefully we can all forget it now.”

Coach Jim Hiller said before the game that he had talked with Fiala, and that both had moved on from the incident.

The healthy scratch though came during what was a bad four-day stretch for Fiala. He was benched during the third period of last Saturday's game against Utah after picking up two penalties that gave him five minors in five games.

“It might look like, ‘Oh, he got benched, and now he misses (a meeting).’ I’m not worried about Kevin. Kevin’ll get it back,” Hiller said. “There’s nothing malicious with anything Kevin did. Kevin is a team guy. He wants the team to have success. Sometimes he has problems controlling his emotions and taking penalties. But it’s nothing that he’s doing purposefully, I was happy to see him rewarded tonight.”

Fiala got on the scoresheet midway through the second period when he assisted on Anze Kopitar's goal to extend Los Angeles' lead to 4-0.

Fiala then scored his third power-play goal of the season 6:23 into the third period to give the Kings a 5-0 advantage.

“He’s the game breaker. We need him to get on the scoresheet," captain Anze Kopitar said. "We want to get him on the power play and get him chances. For him to get a couple of points tonight, it’s sure it’s going to be good for him.”

Fiala has five goals and eight points in nine games. After having his third career 70-point campaign with 29 goals and 73 points last season, he admitted to putting too much pressure on himself.

“You always want to be better than last year. The real answer is it’s tough sometimes," he said. "Mentally, sometimes you just try to do too much or think too much about goals because all those expectations The simple thing is just to be in the moment and, just to take it game-by-game. Sometimes it’s not that easy. I struggled a little bit this season with that. And hopefully with this it can help me to just take it game-by-game and stay in the moment and control what I can control.”

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Los Angeles Kings left wing Kevin Fiala, left, and Vegas Golden Knights right wing Alexander Holtz battle for the puck during the third period of an NHL hockey game, Wednesday, Oct. 30, 2024, in Los Angeles. (AP Photo/Mark J. Terrill)

Los Angeles Kings defenseman Brandt Clarke (92) celebrates his goal with left wing Kevin Fiala (22) during the second period of an NHL hockey game against the Utah Hockey Club, Saturday, Oct. 26, 2024, in Los Angeles. (AP Photo/Kyusung Gong)

LONDON (AP) — Political opposition leaders in the United Kingdom have called for a human rights activist to be stripped of his citizenship over past social media posts allegedly containing violent and antisemitic language within days of the dual national returning to Britain after years in Egyptian prisons.

The leaders of the Conservative and Reform parties also demanded the deportation of Alaa Abd el-Fattah following the discovery of tweets from more than a decade ago in which he allegedly endorsed killing “Zionists’’ and police.

“The comments he made on social media about violence against Jews, white people and the police, amongst others, are disgusting and abhorrent,” Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch wrote Monday in the Daily Mail newspaper.

Abd el-Fattah on Monday apologized for the tweets while saying some had been taken out of context and misrepresented.

The activist has spent years in Egyptian prisons, most recently for allegedly spreading fake news about the government of President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi. He returned to the U.K. on Friday after Egyptian authorities lifted a travel ban that had forced him to remain in the country since he was released in September.

But he immediately became embroiled in controversy after Prime Minister Keir Starmer said he was “delighted” that Abd el-Fattah was back in the UK and had been reunited with his family.

That triggered the republication of messages on the social media platform Twitter, now X, that were described as antisemitic, homophobic and anti-British.

Abd el-Fattah expressed shock at the turn of events in a statement released Monday.

“I am shaken that, just as I am being reunited with my family for the first time in 12 years, several historic tweets of mine have been republished and used to question and attack my integrity and values, escalating to calls for the revocation of my citizenship,’’ he said.

The remarks were mostly expressions of a young man’s anger and frustrations in a time of regional crises such as the wars in Iraq, Lebanon and Gaza and the rise of police brutality against young people in Egypt, Abd el-Fattah said.

“Looking at the tweets now — the ones that were not completely twisted out of their meaning — I do understand how shocking and hurtful they are, and for that I unequivocally apologise,’’ he said in the statement.

But that has not staunched the flow of anger from politicians.

Reform Party leader Nigel Farage described the posts as “abhorrent” and said they showed Abd el-Fattah held views that are “completely opposed to our British way of life.”

“It should go without saying that anyone who possesses racist and anti-British views such as those of Mr. elFattah (sic) should not be allowed into the UK,” Farage wrote in a letter to Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood, who oversees immigration matters.

FILE - Pro-democracy activist Alaa Abd el-Fattah, who was in prison for almost all of the past 12 years, speaks to his friends at his home after he got a presidential pardon, in Cairo, Tuesday, Sept. 23, 2025. (AP Photo/Khaled Elfiqi, File)