SoMnFan
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If this really is the evolution of a superstar, Fiala proved again that it's more than just the physical skills he brings to the table. He's also quickly learning what it takes to excel as a professional too.
That means bouncing back from tough games and making sure one bad night doesn't turn into two bad nights, or three.
"It's such a hard sport, such a hard league, so if you have a bad game, you just have to drop it," Fiala said. "Especially now, in the situation we are in, if we would've just kept on, we would've maybe lost this one as well. We have to drop it mentally and physically and just go for the next one. It's tough to do sometimes, some losses hurt more than others. Obviously [Saturday] hurt a lot, but I think we did a good job of dropping it and going for this one."
Fiala led the Wild in shots on goal Sunday with four and skated 20 minutes, 52 seconds, nearly three full minutes more than the next highest forward.
When he jumps over the boards, his teammates expect good things to happen. So does interim coach Dean Evason.
"We try to get him out there as much as we possibly can," Evason said.
That's one of the reasons why Evason called his timeout right after Fiala drew the tripping penalty on Josh Manson moments before the game-winning goal. It allowed Fiala the opportunity to be on the ice and score the winning goal.
Just 24 hours after perhaps his toughest game of the season, Fiala more than made amends. It's an encouraging development in another long line of them for Minnesota's most impactful player.
"You could be mad as much as you want," Fiala said. "You learn that year-by-year, more seasons ... in Switzerland there's 50 [games]. In juniors, even less, so you have time to think about it. You practice, you can think about, it doesn't really affect you badly.
"But here, you just have to think about the next game. You go so quickly, just this week we had four games. If the first game is bad, and you think about it four days later, that's two games gone. This league is too fast, the games are going too fast to think about that stuff."
Great stuff on our boy.
As much as we all thought BB was a pretty damn good coach, lets realize he wasn't sold on Fiala.
Lets realize at the start of the year, he was still sending out Parise, Suter and Koivu for all OTs
It seems insane at this point, that he didn't even use Fiala some nights. For any role.
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Play like a Pirate.
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