Players Welcome Leiweke ‘Guarantee’

Playoff guarantees have definitely played a part in Laker sports history. Remember Pat Riley’s promising another championship while the team was still celebrating victory in the 1987 NBA Finals?

But King history? Not so much, at least not until Friday night, when team President Tim Leiweke said the Kings would return to the playoffs after missing them last season.

“We’re going to be back,” Leiweke said on Fox Sports Net. “We’re going to make the playoffs this year. You heard it from me here.”

The Kings (1-1-0-0) are off to a fragile start and are missing eight players with injuries that vary in severity from a bruised knee to more serious concussion and whiplash problems that date back to last season.

Still, the Kings had a chance to defeat the Detroit Red Wings, a popular pick to advance to the Stanley Cup finals, before allowing two goals in the final 3:45 of a 3-2 loss Thursday. A night later, the Kings handily defeated the Pittsburgh Penguins, 3-0, and almost tied a franchise record by allowing only 11 shots.

The Kings were picked to make the playoffs in most preseason publications -- typically as the seventh-seeded team out of eight that would make the playoffs in the Western Conference -- before it became clear that injuries would be a main story line to start the season.

Two of the more serious injuries date to last season. Center Jason Allison has not played since February after experiencing whiplash collisions three times in a 10-day span. Left wing Adam Deadmarsh has been out since December after suffering two concussions within two weeks. Allison and Deadmarsh combined for 136 points two seasons ago.

King officials had said Allison and Deadmarsh would return in time for the season opener, but neither has practiced with contact and there is no definitive timetable for their return.

“Blame us for that,” Leiweke said. “We’ve gone back to both those guys and said, ‘Don’t come back until you’re 100%.’

“I think you’re going to see both guys soon. When they get back in the lineup in November, we’re going to be fine and that’s because we have depth. We didn’t have depth last year.”

His prediction was fine with the players.

“I know Tim’s got the Kings at heart,” right wing Ian Laperriere said. “We have a lot of depth, but we also have a lot of injuries. If we need help through a trade, he’ll help us. By saying that, he committed himself to do everything to getting the best team on the ice. That’s good to hear.”

Said left wing Luc Robitaille: “It’s a certain pressure, but that’s the reason we do what we do, because we live with that pressure.... The way I look at it, I don’t want to make the playoffs, I want to win the Cup.”

*

Defenseman Mattias Norstrom, who was pinched into the boards against Detroit and felt numbness in his right arm, was diagnosed Saturday with a chest bruise and will miss at least two games, leaving the Kings without their top two defensemen for at least a week.

Norstrom could return as early as Saturday against the Boston Bruins.

Aaron Miller is sidelined up to three more weeks because of a broken left wrist.

*

Pittsburgh defenseman Brooks Orpik was suspended for one game and fined almost $6,000 by the NHL for his knee-to-knee hit on King defenseman Tim Gleason. Gleason, who left the game and was diagnosed with a bruised knee, is day-to-day. Orpik sat out Saturday night’s game against the Philadelphia Flyers.