Lewis, Muzzin updates, and how McNabb is affected

Trevor Lewis, who was unable to finish Wednesday’s season-opening 4-0 loss to the San Jose Sharks, did not skate at practice on Thursday and has been deemed day-to-day with a “mid-to-upper-body injury,” as first reported by Lisa Dillman of the Los Angeles Times.

Also amongst the small group of early season walking wounded is Jake Muzzin, who did not participate in Wednesday’s game. There’s the potential he could also miss games this weekend. The Kings will travel to Arizona for a game on Saturday before returning home to conclude the back-to-back set against Winnipeg on Sunday.

“Practice-wise, skating, lungs, everything feels fine,” said Muzzin, who did participate in Thursday’s practice. “It’s just kind of a fluky injury that I have to sit out for a couple of games.”

The injury is extra-frustrating for the 25-year-old defenseman who broke out with a fine season as Drew Doughty’s defensive partner a year and reported to training camp in excellent shape – as did many of his teammates.

“You prepare to play in the first game, and all summer you get ready for that game, and it’s an emotional game with the banner going up and all that stuff,” Muzzin said. “To be sidelined and have to watch, it’s frustrating. But it’s part of the game. Everyone gets hurt and you’ve got to miss a couple games. There are injuries here and there, and [I’m] just listening to the doctors and [we’ll] go from there.”

The injury opened the door for Brayden McNabb, who skated alongside Drew Doughty and logged 23:27 of ice time in his Kings debut last night – the second highest total on the team – and was purposely placed in challenging situations, as Darryl Sutter explained.

“I thought he was really good early, and then I think as the game wore on he wasn’t as effective as he was early in the game,” Sutter said. “Hey, the big part of it is keeping your pace and passing the puck hard and getting your feet in the right position and getting where we want the defensemen to be on the ice, and that’s a big curve. And I think he was fine. That’s in no way criticism, but you know what? We’ve had to go through that with a lot of young defensemen here, and right now we’re in this position where he’s got to play, so it’s not like we’re going to take him out and have him watch, things like that. Right now he’s got to play, and, quite honest, that’s good for our team because if he can continue the steps going forward, just keep improving, then – touch wood – when we get everybody back, then maybe he stays in the lineup. So it becomes all of that part of it too, instead of saying he is the odd-man, or the guy that’s waiting to go in. It puts pressure on everybody then. We played him in a lot of situations that if Muzz would’ve been healthy, then he was probably the odd guy out last night. So basicaclly what we decided was we’re going to put him in every situation that Muzz would’ve been in. So that was the decision we made, and really, it’s the ebst way to look at it in terms of fulfilling that role. He’s probably the most capable player of doing it.”

The situation allowed Doughty to continue to gain experience as a defensive mentor for a less-experienced partner.

“I think he has to [serve in a mentor role],” Sutter said. “As he gets a year older, or every year, there are guys that are going to be younger than him, whereas before that wasn’t necessarily the case. I think it was pretty much on Slava, and them paired with older guys. We’ve seen that with Drew already with Muzzin, for sure, and then last night with Brayden.”

Despite sitting out, Muzzin maintained his sense of humor when recalling last night’s banner ceremony, in which he took part. It was an appropriate ceremony, per Muzzin, “minus the wipeout.”

He was referring to a tumble Kyle Clifford took when accidentally skating over a corner of a black carpet as the players assembled in a circle during player introductions that culminated in the Stanley Cup being lowered from the rafters shortly before the Stanley Cup banner was raised.

While Clifford attempted to skate around the carpet, Doughty simply leapt over it.

“Yeah, Dewey doesn’t take directions very well,” Muzzin said. “They told us to skate around. It was pretty funny.”