Muzzin set to return Thursday

Jake Muzzin has been cleared to return to the Los Angeles Kings and should be expected to be in the lineup for Thursday’s home game against the Buffalo Sabres.

“I’m good to go. We got cleared, and I’m excited for tomorrow night,” Muzzin said.

The prognosis on his upper-body injury was that he would need three weeks to recover. Tomorrow’s game comes three weeks to the day that he suffered the injury during a 2-1 shootout win over the Avalanche in Colorado Springs.

Because of Slava Voynov’s indefinite suspension, the Kings will once again ice their 18 available healthy skaters. Trevor Lewis skated for the second straight day prior to the Kings’ practice and remains day-to-day. Marian Gaborik hasn’t returned to the ice yet.

Muzzin said that he’s not at “100 percent,” but feels “good to go.”

Testing the injury with battle drills at practice and deeming his morning on the ice as “a good day,” he was confident he’d be able to step back into the lineup after having missed the first six games of the season. There are concerns of returning to a game speed after having missed the better part of October with the ailment.

“[The injury] didn’t affect my skating or being able to do that,” he said. “It’s different though, going from practice to a game tempo and game battles and game situations. But we’ll look to get into it tomorrow night and go from there, see how I feel.”

During drills and rushes Muzzin was paired with Drew Doughty, with whom he was paired for the better part of last season.

Jake Muzzin, on whether it has been difficult waiting to get into a game:
It’s part of the game. You’ve got to deal with it the proper way, or else it could’ve been a lot worse if we rushed it and could’ve been out a lot longer. Deal with it the proper way here. Miss a couple games early and we’ve got a lot of season left. So I’m looking forward to it.

Muzzin, on whether he has had enough battle drills in practice to be ready for the game:
Yeah, today was a good day. We did a lot of battles and got some contact and some pushing and it felt good.

Muzzin, on his growing experience with the team and evolving into a team leader:
This group is a pretty experienced group, and not including myself at all and some of the other guys who’ve come up, there are a lot of leaders here, a lot of experience. I look to improve my game and help the team as much as I can, whether it be on or off the ice and we go from there. I look to get better every year and I want to get better and help the team win some championships here.