Jake Muzzin suffered an upper-body injury during the preseason and has missed Los Angeles’ first five games as a result. He’s expected to be held out of a sixth contest when the Kings play against Minnesota at 3:00 p.m. ET today.
The silver lining is that he might return sooner rather than later.
“He’ll get his X-ray on whatever his three-week date is, and go from there,” Kings coach Darryl Sutter said, per LA Kings Insider. “He looks fine, but it hasn’t changed in terms of the same thing we said before. It’s not coaches making the decision or a player making the decision. Doctors are going to [make the decision], so just wait.”
Over a week ago, Sutter termed the injury as a “frustrating” one because Muzzin has been doing everything he can to return, but simply hasn’t been able to play.
He will hit the three-week mark on Thursday and the Kings are scheduled to play against Buffalo that night.
The Kings are 3-1-1 without him, but he’s an important part of the team going forward. They already demonstrated as much by inking him to a five-year, $20 million contract extension on Oct. 15.