LA Kings’ 2019 fourth-round pick’s season on hold

LA Kings’ 2019 fourth-round pick Kim Nousiainen’s season is on hold right now as team Kalpa had several COVID cases.

Kim Nousiainen was off to a fast start through the first four games of the 2020-2021 season. The LA Kings‘ 2019 fourth-round picked scored two goals in Friday’s contest. And through four games, he had three points for KalPa of the Liiga, the top hockey league in Finland.

But it appears that Friday’s match was not all joyful. As many as 13 players on KalPa were potentially exposed to at least one positive COVID case. Obviously, no names have been released at this time, and team operations will reportedly not be suspended either. However, matches have been postponed because the number of available KalPa players is not enough to continue at the moment.

The 13 players that were exposed are being quarantined until at least October 26.

Here’s the official statement from the team (with the English translation below).

“Another coronavirus infection has been confirmed in the Kärppien Liiga team. T13 members of KalPa’s team are also considered to have been exposed to the coronavirus during last Friday’s match, and the exposed team members have been quarantined.”

The 19-year-old defenseman scored 8 goals with 20 assists for 28 points in 32 games for the KalPa U20 team in his draft year. The year prior, he helped Team Finland win the gold medal in the World Juniors, chipping in one goal in 7 games.

And now, he’ll be in a holding pattern until the end of the month. Here was his first goal of the year.