Doughty’s return

As (often) noted, Drew Doughty will be back in the Kings’ lineup tomorrow after missing six consecutive games with concussion symptoms. Doughty will be back in his regular pairing with Willie Mitchell and, by all accounts, will play his regular amount of minutes. Doughty’s return also means that the Kings will have their intended defensive lineup intact for the first time this season, given that Matt Greene didn’t return until Doughty was out of the lineup. Here’s what Doughty said today about having the whole band together, plus his thoughts on his return…

DOUGHTY: “I think, with the guys we have in this locker room, the guys we have on defense in particular, we’re one of the best D corps in the whole league. Right from our first D-man to our seventh D-man, we’re so solid, and then obviously we have Muzz, who just got sent back, and he’s a great player too. We’re really comfortable with the unit we have here, the defensive corps, and we have great goaltending in the back too. Playing against this Tampa team, they have a lot of offense so we need to be solid back there.”

Question: Did you feel OK out there today?

DOUGHTY: “I felt good. I’ve felt good for a little while now. It was just making sure I was perfectly ready to play. You don’t want to mess around with stuff like that, so now that I’ve been good for a number of days, I’m really looking forward to playing tomorrow.”

Question: Did you get any contact out there, or think about asking for some contact just to see if it was OK?

DOUGHTY: “We didn’t have too much contact, but yesterday I was wearing a yellow jersey and I wasn’t supposed to be doing contact, but I chose to do a little bit of it myself anyway. So I’m feeling good, and I’m doing things off the ice just to make sure, just little things, and I feel great, 100 percent, right back to normal.”