Gretzky’s Back Problems Are New Ones : Kings: Star center spends another night in hospital. Exhibition opener is tonight.

What started out as a slight upper back twinge three days ago has put King star Wayne Gretzky into the hospital for two consecutive nights for tests and observation.

Gretzky spent Thursday night at Centinela Hospital Medical Center in Inglewood, essentially repeating the process he underwent the previous day. It started when he felt a twinge on Tuesday. By Wednesday Gretzky was hunched over in pain.

He will not be with the team for tonight’s exhibition opener against the Canucks in Vancouver. Gretzky is being treated by one of the Kings’ team physicians, Ronald Kvitne and back specialist Robert Watkins.

Kvitne said this is unrelated to any back problems that Gretzky has had in the past. Most recently, Gretzky injured his lower back in the Canada Cup tournament a year ago.

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The initial cuts were posted and the Kings pulled out of town on Thursday. One roster included the 36 players scheduled to travel with the team during the exhibition season.

Two King rookies, Robert Lang and Alexei Zhitnik, won’t travel to Vancouver because of visa problems but will join the team in time for Sunday’s game in Portland against the Pittsburgh Penguins.

Left behind were players who will either return to their junior teams--for example, goaltender Sandy Allan and defenseman Justin Hocking--or go to the Kings’ minor league club at Phoenix.

There were only a couple of mild surprises. One was that veteran center Scott Bjugstad was designated for Phoenix. Bjugstad split his time between Phoenix and Los Angeles last season, playing in 22 games for the Kings. Another surprise cut was center Guy Leveque. The Kings had been very high on him before training camp. But Coach Barry Melrose said that although Leveque showed great deal of skill, there was not enough grit.

In one aspect, Melrose was disappointed with his first King camp.

“I didn’t see any battling out there for jobs,” he said. “A lot of the older guys seemed resigned to going to the minors. The juniors were resigned to going back to juniors.

“I was very happy with some of our veterans, but I think some guys missed out on a golden opportunity.”

Three goaltenders left camp with the Kings, veteran Kelly Hrudey, Robb Stauber and David Goverde. For now, Darryl Gilmour appears to be the only one out of contention for the backup spot.