Practice Update: Kings Back to the Ice, Muzzin Back in the Lineup?

There's no easy way to transition to ordinary hockey coverage, but with the Los Angeles Kings back at practice on Tuesday morning, we do at least have some updates on the Kings' injured players.

• Jake Muzzin is eyeing a return. That return could be Thursday. The optimistic tweet...
  

  Muzzin expected to see doctor later today said he should be good to go

  — lisa dillman (@reallisa) October 21, 2014

  
  ... and the cautiously optimistic tweet...

  Jake Muzzin said he was optimistic about playing Thursday but wouldn’t take a risk just because of Voynov’s absence.

  — Rich Hammond (@Rich_Hammond) October 21, 2014

  ... from the Kings' beat writers indicate that Thursday is on the table. At worst, it seems like Muzzin will absolutely accompany the team on the road trip starting a week from today in Philadelphia, and Sunday at Columbus is likely a reasonable target.
• If Muzzin CAN'T go, we get into, yep, the "hockey implications" of Voynov's arrest. Jon Rosen has the detailed version; the short version is that if Muzzin can't go on Thursday, the Kings have five healthy defensemen and no cap room for a sixth. The way to avoid that is by using Long-Term Injured Reserve, and most likely, we would see Trevor Lewis head to LTIR and Jeff Schultz called up from Manchester. Lewis doesn't count against the cap, and we end up with:
  
• As for Lewis: he skated early, but still looks to be a week or two away. LTIR would keep him from returning to the lineup until November 2, or 24 days after the first game he missed.
• Marian Gaborik, on the other hand, no longer appears to be day-to-day. He did not skate today and probably will not until next week, as per Rosen. That's bad news.
  

Finally, a brief note on yesterday: thanks to Langluy for a thoughtful initial post on Voynov's arrest, and thanks to all those who kept the comments section reasonable yesterday. That goes for both those who moderated the comments section and those who contributed to it. Even those who disagreed with tone or with certain comments were largely respectful and outlined their arguments without degenerating into, well, chaos. It's an unpleasant situation, but everyone here understood the gravity of it, and we really do appreciate it.