Palffy, Visnovsky Get OK to Play in Preliminaries

The Kings will allow two of their top players to leave the team for two days next month to play in an Olympic preliminary-round game, General Manager Dave Taylor said Thursday, because they know how much it means to the players.

Ziggy Palffy and Lubomir Visnovsky will leave the Kings after a game Feb. 8 at Phoenix, play for Slovakia against Latvia on Feb. 10 at Salt Lake City, then return for the Kings’ next game, Feb. 11 against the Dallas Stars at Staples Center.

“It would be a big thrill and a great opportunity to play and we’d like to accommodate them,” Taylor said. “We don’t want to deny them the experience.”

Slovakia is one of eight teams required to qualify for two spots in the main competition leading to the medal round.

The Kings had said for months that they would not release Palffy and Visnovsky to play in the qualifying round because it coincides with NHL play and they couldn’t afford to be without them.

But after several discussions with the players and former NHL player Peter Stastny, general manager of Team Slovakia, Taylor had a change of heart.

The Slovaks, who got a tournament-high 10 points from Palffy en route to a sixth-place finish in the 1994 Winter Games at Lillehammer, Norway, are scheduled to play Germany on Feb. 9, Latvia on Feb. 10 and Austria on Feb. 12.

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Center Eric Belanger, a key player in the Kings’ recent surge, is expected to be sidelined for at least a week and possibly much longer after suffering a sprained left wrist in Tuesday night’s 2-0 victory over the Nashville Predators. Belanger has eight goals and 14 assists.

Jerry Crowe