Murray, on Williams’ possible return

Justin Williams’ recovery from his dislocated shoulder got a big boost last night when doctors cleared Williams for all practice activities. Williams will be on the ice for practice tomorrow morning, according to Terry Murray, and Williams’ status for Game 1 against San Jose probably will be determined by his comfort level in the next couple days. Williams missed the final nine regular-season games after he injured his shoulder in a March 21 game against Calgary. Here’s what Murray said about Williams’ status

MURRAY: “He’s going to participate in practice tomorrow. The testing, obviously, was very positive. It’s a matter of getting on the ice and starting to participate in the practice and feeling good about your situation, and also knowing the consequences (of playing) that we talked about yesterday morning. There’s a possibility of another injury, but that’s true even if you don’t have an injury. It’s always there, but you have to try to block that part of it out and play your game. He’s been skating hard in the last week, in the extra, so conditioning-wise, I think he should be pretty good. Now he’s got the green light from the doctor to start participating.”

Question: In terms of him playing, it is just a matter of him feeling comfortable enough to go?

MURRAY: “It always will come down to the player coming to the coach and saying, `I’m ready to go.’ Always. When you’re coming off an injury, it’s rehab time, it’s time on the ice, conditioning-wise, and then there comes a time when the player and the coach talk and he tells me how he’s doing. That’s the ultimate meeting, and eventually you make your decision, as a coach, whether he goes into the lineup or not.”

Rules for Blog Commenting

  • No profanity, slurs or other offensive language. Replacing letters with symbols does not turn expletives into non-expletives.
  • Personal attacks against other blog commenters, and/or blatant attempts to antagonize other comments, are not tolerated. Respectful disagreement is encouraged. Posts that continually express the same singular opinion will be deleted.
  • Comments that incite political, religious or similar debates will be deleted.
  • Please do not discuss, or post links to websites that illegally stream NHL games.
  • Posting under multiple user names is not allowed. Do not type in all caps. All violations are subject to comment deletion and/or banning of commenters, per the discretion of the blog administrator.

Repeated violations of the blog rules will result in site bans, commensurate with the nature and number of offenses.

Please flag any comments that violate the site rules for moderation. For immediate problems regarding problematic posts, please email zdooley@lakings.com.