Kings’ depth on defense tested in preseason

The negative: Finishing Sunday night’s preseason game at Colorado against the Avalanche with four defensemen, rather than the usual six.

The positive: The NHL’s regular season, for the Kings, does not start until Oct. 7.

In other words, the Kings have a bit of time on their hands for the healing process to take place for injured Jake Muzzin and Matt Greene. Both defensemen suffered upper-body injuries in Sunday’s 2-1 shootout victory and were scheduled to be evaluated on Monday in Los Angeles.

Kings Coach Darryl Sutter said after practice Monday that Muzzin and Greene were day to day. Muzzin was injured in the first period and Greene, though he remained on the bench, did not play after the second period.

Sutter joked about dressing only four defensemen for Tuesday’s preseason game against the Ducks on Tuesday night at Staples Center.

“After Greener and Muzz went down -- with the four defensemen -- sometimes that’s the best way to have it,” Sutter said. “They just play their game and they know they’re going to have to recover in a hurry and they know they’re going back out there. Maybe we’ll just dress four defensemen tomorrow. It’ll be good for them guys.”

There were big minutes for the other defensemen. Newcomer Christian Ehrhoff played 30-plus minutes and Jeff Schultz logged nearly 25 minutes.

“In Denver, that’s a lot,” Schultz said of playing at altitude. “I don’t know what it translates to here. He [Ehrhoff] did a great job. It’s hard going down to five D and then to four D. As a group, we did a pretty good job. You can’t overthink stuff. You’ve just got to go with the plays, managing ice time and not getting stuck out for too long a period of time.

“I liked our game. I thought system-wise we were getting some good structure in our game, and I think work-wise we were fine. I liked the play of our -- I don’t know if I’d call them our ‘third and fourth lines,’ I thought they had really good games for us.”