Back Spasms Slow Schneider

King defenseman Mathieu Schneider was scratched Saturday after suffering lower-back spasms while warming up before the Kings’ 6-4 victory over the Colorado Avalanche.

“I didn’t want to make it worse,” Schneider said. He incurred the injury a week ago while in the weight room but played against the Detroit Red Wings and the New York Islanders with it and practiced four days.

“I hurt it again in practice yesterday,” he said. “Then it stiffened up again last night, and in warmups it got worse.

“We’ve got four days off [before playing the New Jersey Devils on Thursday], and I’ll be ready for that.”

With Schneider sidelined, Jaroslav Modry rejoined Lubomir Visnovsky in a defense pairing. The two were together for the season’s first 13 games, until Visnovsky became Schneider’s partner.

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King winger Glen Murray might not be as lucky.

Murray suffered a strained muscle just above his right knee when he was tripped by the stick of Colorado’s Martin Skoula at 18:30 of the opening period. He will be evaluated today.

The injury left the Kings short a forward, as did a first-period fight involving Ian Laperriere and Colorado’s Greg de Vries that cost Laperriere a two-minute instigator penalty, plus five minutes for fighting and a 10-minute misconduct.

To replace Murray, Craig Johnson was moved up from the fourth line, which without Laperriere was reduced to winger Stu Grimson.

Essentially, the Kings played most of the rest of the game with three lines.

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The Kings’ television voice, Bob Miller, was given a trip to Hawaii by the team during the first intermission.

Miller was honored for receiving the Foster Hewitt Award at Toronto on Monday, which put him in the Hockey Hall of Fame.