All The Injury Updates – Notes on Gavrikov, Kaliyev & More + Jack Bruce Joins Kings For Practice

A day of updates, Insiders.

The Kings returned to the ice for practice today, with updates and status reports on several players available during and following the skate.

First things first, here’s who did practice today, and how they aligned.

Byfield – Kopitar – Kempe
Fiala – Danault – Moore
Grundstrom – Dubois – Laferriere
Anderson-Dolan – Lizotte – Lewis

Anderson – Doughty
Moverare – Roy
Englund – Spence

Copley / Talbot

Defenseman Vladislav Gavrikov and forward Arthur Kaliyev were not on the ice today.

– Gavrikov is out, day-to-day, with a lower body injury. Gavrikov will not play tomorrow against Winnipeg and the Kings will evaluate his situation between tomorrow’s game versus the Jets and Saturday’s game versus the Kraken.
– Kaliyev missed today’ practice with “flu-like symptoms”, per Todd McLellan. He was not yet been ruled out for tomorrow, but he’s also not confirmed to play. We’ll give that one 24 hours of time and see where things go.

“Arty has flu-like symptoms, I don’t know if he will be available for tomorrow or not, we’ll wait and see how he is tonight and in the morning,” Todd McLellan said. “Gavy won’t play tomorrow, we’ll call him day-to-day, lower body.”

On Gavrikov, he initially left Saturday’s game versus the Islanders during the third period, but eventually returned and finished the game. He dressed against the Rangers the following night and played the majority of the first period, but did not return for the second and third period, eventually being ruled out with a lower-body injury.

McLellan pointed to the combination of events with relation to Gavrikov. It wasn’t just the play against the Islanders, or any sort of aggravation against the Rangers. It was the full weekend that the Kings are looking at

“He got hit on the Island, came back and played, played the first period in New York, so I think that’s probably a pretty good indication that he’s not seriously hurt [in the game],” McLellan added. “The fact that he didn’t finish the game against the Rangers is not a good sign as well, so he needs a day or two to let everything settle down and we’ll see where he ends up.”

Beyond Gavrikov and Kaliyev, on the positive news front, forward Phillip Danault and defenseman Jordan Spence each practiced in full today. Danault took a puck to the face in New York, left the game for treatment and later returned to the bench during the second period. He scored the team’s lone goal during the third period, wearing facial protection to protect his injury. Danault skated today with no restrictions.

Spence is rocking a bit of a Drew Doughty-esque smile today, with a chipped front tooth. Nothing to worry about in terms of his availability to play, as Spence was out there in full during today’s skate. A cosmetic procedure, however, likely awaits him in the future.

Looking ahead to tomorrow, expect to see defenseman Jacob Moverare make his season debut tomorrow evening against Winnipeg.

Moverare was with the Kings as the seventh defenseman on their recent roadtrip and is a familiar face for everyone. He’s one of those guys where you know, for the most part, what you’re going to get more nights than not.

Regarding defenseman Tobias Bjornfot, McLellan shared that the expectation for him is to finish his conditioning loan with the Ontario Reign – they play tomorrow as well, versus the Henderson Silver Knights – and then that situation will be reassessed before Saturday’s game against Seattle.

A lot can happen between now and then. Gavrikov is currently out, day-to-day, with McLellan noting that gives him an additional three days until the Kraken game to see what his status is.

Regarding Bjornfot, the Kings will have to make a decision on his status following tomorrow’s Ontario game. Bjornfot was originally assigned to the AHL on a conditioning loan on 11/16. Typically, a conditioning loan is an assignment of 3-5 games, within a 14-day window, done for a variety of reasons. What complicated Bjornfot’s situation is that he suffered an injury during his loan, which changed the timetable he’s been allowed to play in the AHL for, without being subjected to waivers. In total, Bjornfot has played eight games with the Reign, with number nine expected tomorrow.

As McLellan notes, Bjornfot should have one game remaining on his conditioning loan. Following that, the Kings would need to recall him from Ontario, as he is not waiver-exempt, or place him on waivers in order to assign him to the Reign. The Kings were happy to give Bjornfot the opportunity to play AHL games, and play as many games as he could, coming off an injury.

“It’s my understanding that Toby has one more game on his assignment there and he’ll play that game,” McLellan said. “We’ll play Moverare tomorrow. It’s good for Toby, after his injury, to get playing again down there. We’ll finish tomorrow’s game, we will get a couple more days to re-evaluate how Gavy feels and we’ll make some decisions based on that.”

Regarding Kings prospect Alex Turcotte, he did not practice again with the AHL group today and remains out of action due to injury. No further updates at this time from the Reign, but certainly not expecting him to play tomorrow against Henderson – without a practice – so until he gets back with that group, don’t expect to see him in the lineup. Ontario is actually pretty light on games until the holiday break, playing just three times after tomorrow until December 28, so we’ll keep an eye on practice days here as a sign of progress. Expect to see multiple practice days in advance of a return to game action, which we’ll have when it happens.

Lastly, no timetable updates on Viktor Arvidsson. He has not started skating yet and remains out of action on a month-to-month basis. We see him around the rink from time-to-time, which is a great sign, and nothing his changed on the expectation that he could factor in here this season. As he continues to progress, we’ll have that here.

Lastly, Insiders, sharing a nice story from today’s practice.

11-year-old Jack Bruce skated with the Kings today during their practice, as a partnership with the Make-A-Wish program. Bruce sat in on team meetings this morning, had his own stall in the locker room and took part in practice with the team. A lot of really special moments and I’m sure we’ll have some content to share in the coming days.

For today, though, wanted to share Todd McLellan’s remarks on not only the importance of hosting people like this, but on the positive impact that Jack had on the players and staff.

“First star today, not even close, it’s too bad we didn’t have a little more cap space or we could sign him and keep him. Jack in particular – I’ll speak about him and then then the event – what a wonderful young man. He obviously has some things going on in his world, that he has to fight against, and you’d never know it. The smile, the demeanor, the way he carried himself in the locker room and on the ice. I think he came here hoping to uplift his spirits a little bit, but I’m not too sure he understands what he does to our [spirits], it’s give and take. His parents should be really proud of that young man, because they’ve done a really good job and he carried himself well. The event itself, it would be great if we could do that every day. I don’t think anybody in our organization would have an ounce of bitching or complaining if we had to continually perform with individuals like that. So, hats off to whoever set it up and we hope to see him again.”

Pretty strong words. Quite obvious from watching practice today that he made an impact on the players and in seeing him after the skate, quite obvious that the players had an impact on him as well.

More to come tomorrow, including a look at defenseman Jacob Moverare and his season debut to come, against the Winnipeg Jets.