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Marian Gaborik’s “Body” Injury Will Keep Him Out vs Edmonton

Marian Gaborik missed all but one game of the preseason with what Darryl Sutter termed a “body” injury. After appearing in the Kings‘ first three games and picking up a single assist, it looks like Gaborik is out of the lineup once again.

That brief announcement eventually got some more context from Hammond and from Jon Rosen, but the gist is:

  1. this is a recurrence of the injury that kept Gaborik out during training camp;
  2. it has to do with a muscle of some sort;
  3. it doesn’t appear to be a long-term injury;
  4. there’s no way we’re finding out more unless Darryl Sutter comes out and says what’s wrong;
  5. he probably won’t do that.

Mike Richards will skate on his third different line of the young season, moving up to the first line left wing spot. Richards has played left wing in a pinch for LA a few times. Sutter’s utilizing an approach he used with the Muzzin injury; rather than retooling the current combinations, he’s upsetting as little as possible by keeping the lines together aside from the single substitution. That’s reassuring; if Gaborik was out long-term, I’d expect him to put Brown-Kopitar-Williams together on the first line, or to move Toffoli up and put Richards on the second line.

Instead, it’s a direct plug-in of Richards on the first line, which keeps the second and third lines together and allows for Andy Andreoff to get his NHL debut with Kyle Clifford and Jordan Nolan on the fourth line. It also means that there are no spare forwards OR defensemen left on the active roster. As Rosen notes, any more injuries would allow for an emergency call-up from Manchester.

Probable lines:

Richards-Kopitar-Williams
Pearson-Carter-Toffoli
King-Stoll-Brown
Clifford-Andreoff-Nolan

McNabb-Doughty
Regehr-Voynov
Martinez-Greene

Quick
Jones

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