Mitchell, not quite yet

Willie Mitchell joined the Kings toward the end of practice for their conditioning skating, as he has been doing in recent days, but Mitchell (broken wrist) has not yet been cleared to play. That could happen — in fact, it’s likely — within the next couple days, but Terry Murray ruled out Mitchell’s availability for Thursday and made it sound unlikely that Mitchell could be available on Saturday against Minnesota.

MURRAY: “I don’t think so. I don’t want to push a player out (of the lineup), because I don’t know what the opinions of the medical people are right now, but I’ve always kind of had the feeling that he was a week behind Poni.”

After Saturday, the Kings play next Monday at Detroit and next Thursday at St. Louis. Murray was more optimistic about the return of Alexei Ponikarovsky, proactively telling reporters that Ponikarovsky is likely to play on Thursday…

MURRAY: “He’s excited about getting back in practice and being part of a line, part of the team. He’s gearing up, and I’m gearing up, for Thursday. He let that be known a few days ago, `I want to be playing, I’m ready to get going,’ so we’ll get him right back on the line with Handzus and Simmer, and we’ll get him going.”

Question: Did you have any hesitation in terms of putting him right back on that line?

MURRAY: “No. I never would take a player off a position because of an injury. That’s not his fault. He’s playing the game hard for the team and stuff happens. When he’s ready to get himself back into the lineup, 99 percent of the time I would put the player right back at his position.”

Question: What will be bring to the team when he comes back?

MURRAY: “He’s going to bring a big body, to begin with. He’s big, he’s strong, he skates well. He was playing very responsible away from the puck before the injury. In fact, I liked his overall game very much before he was injured. At the start of the year, it’s always an adjustment to come to a new team and a new system. I felt things were coming along, but a little bit too slow, and we talked about it. He’s one of those players that is very coachable. He wants to do what needs to be done in order to help the team win, and he came right back — in fact, the next game — and his energy and his intensity, tempo, the things that we talked about, were much better. So he’s a good player for us.”