Los Angeles Kings' controversial decision to healthy scratch Kevin Fiala finally gets explained

Yesterday, the Los Angeles Kings organization surprised a lot of people when they announced that Kevin Fiala, one of their top scorers, would be a healthy scratch for last night's game in San Jose against the Sharks.

While the Sharks had only one win at the time and would be without Macklin Celebrini, who's still recovering from the injury he suffered during his first NHL game, the Kings shouldn't have underestimated the Sharks, as they fell 4-2 to San Jose and former Kings player Tyler Toffoli. They also faced Vitek Vanecek, who had one of his best performances this season, with a .928 SV%.

In a new development, we finally learned why the Kings decided to remove him from the lineup.

According to multiple sources, including Elliotte Friedman, Fiala was late to a team meeting, forcing the organization and head coach Jim Hiller to take drastic measures.

It's hard not to wonder if the Kings could've had a better shot at winning if Fiala had been on the ice. However, rules are rules and consequences must be applied if players don't follow them. It's not unusual to see players who arrive late at team events get scratched in the NHL. However, when it is detrimental to the team's success, it's hard to see the point behind that decision.