Martinez update

As posted earlier, Alec Martinez is out with some undefined “lower-body injury,” so Peter Harrold will be taking his place in the lineup. That seemed likely to happen anyway, but if nothing else perhaps it saved Murray the awkward situation of benching a player after his NHL debut. Here’s what Murray said about Martinez…

MURRAY: “He’s going to be out. He would not be able to play anyway. … He has a little bit of a lower-body injury that happened after practice was over yesterday, on the ice doing a drill at the end of the practice. I spoke with our medical trainer this morning and he’s day to day, but it could be a little bit more than day to day. So with that happening at the end of the practice, he would have been out of the lineup (anyway). It really was not a coach’s decision after all.”

Murray said that with Sean O’Donnell returning from his suspension after tonight’s game, the Kings wouldn’t necessarily need to make a roster move. Essentially, they would be replacing Martinez with O’Donnell, with Harrold still available as a spare at forward and defense.

MURRAY: “Well, we will have O’Donnell coming back after this game, so we’ll be back to the seven D. Then we just have to evaluate, as we move through it, with Martinez, how long he’s going to be and, do we move (Peter Harrold) back to being that utility player at the forward position? We should be OK to get through this.”