North America Tour Begins

Since the Kings don’t play the second game of their eight-game, 17-day trip until Friday at Ottawa, Coach Andy Murray kept his team overnight in San Jose after their game against the Sharks on Tuesday.

Murray’s reasoning? The more rest his players can get, the better. After playing the Senators, the Kings play at Montreal Saturday and Toronto Nov. 12. Then the Kings will fly back to the West Coast to play at Vancouver Nov. 14 and Edmonton Nov. 16.

From there, the Kings leave Canada to play at Minnesota Nov. 19 and St. Louis Nov. 21.

“I think this is the most interesting trip in the history of the NHL,” Murray said, sarcastically. “We’ll get to see a lot of different geography and different cultures. We’ll go from French-speaking Canada to Western Canada and back to the Midwest.

“You really don’t know what clothing to bring, so our suitcases are pretty full.... All I know is that if we earned frequent-flier miles, I’d have a free trip to Hawaii when we got done.”

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Defenseman Aaron Miller, who participated in the Kings’ morning skates the previous two game days,, is expected to be in the lineup at Ottawa after sitting out the first 13 games of the season because of abdominal surgery.