Tuomainen Rises Above Pain

It’s a joke he plays on the trainers.

“I really don’t want to talk about it,” said Marko Tuomainen when queried about the Chi Chi Rodriguez sheathing of his hockey stick after scoring.

Tuomainen pantomimed the act Rodriguez does with his putter on the golf course Thursday night after his goal in the Kings’ 6-2 victory. The score came only 16 seconds after Luc Robitaille’s second goal.

Then Tuomainen went to the medics at the Gaylord Entertainment Center, where his swollen foot was X-rayed for a second time.

“There’s still a lot of pain,” he said, limping from the shower. “And it swells when I take my skate off.”

When he took a shot in the foot against Dallas at Staples Center a week ago it was thought that Tuomainen would have to be put on injured reserve. It was a logical move with Jozef Stumpel and Glen Murray coming off injuries.

But Pavel Rosa was sent to Long Beach and Brad Chartrand to Lowell. After Tuomainen took a day off from practice, he walked into trainer Peter Demers’ office and handed him the crutches. He put on his skates, practiced and has played regular shifts since.

The extra X-ray was a precaution because of what happened to Robitaille earlier in the season. Robitaille took a shot on the ankle and was determined to have a bruise. He played three more games, then an MRI showed his foot was actually broken and he missed almost five weeks.

“I don’t think this is a break,” Tuomainen said. “I want to keep playing.”

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Tuomainen plays on the third line, with Ian Laperriere and Craig Johnson and, while the mission of the unit is defensive in nature, the three have combined for three goals in two games.

Johnson had the Kings’ only score in a 3-1 loss at Dallas on Wednesday night, and Laperriere and Tuomainen scored Thursday.