Kings’ Mike Richards, Willie Mitchell out at least a few games

The Kings’ well-founded worries turned into legitimate concerns Friday when center Mike Richards landed on injured reserve and defenseman Willie Mitchell joined him on the sideline.

Though Mitchell was not put on injured reserve, Coach Terry Murray acknowledged both players would miss at least a few games. Summing up the situation, a grim-faced Murray said: “Not good.”

The official team line is that Richards has an upper-body injury and Mitchell has a lower-body injury sustained during his first shift Thursday against Florida. The injuries triggered the activation of forward Dustin Penner for the Kings’ game Saturday against Montreal.

But the nature of Richards’ injury became clearer when Kings President and General Manager Dean Lombardi was asked about the league’s quiet-room protocol, in which a player suspected of having sustained a concussion is evaluated by a doctor.

“On the basis of those tests last night, he [Richards] couldn’t return,” Lombardi said. “Then he had tests again in the morning.”

Richards, the team’s leading goal scorer, took a hit to his head from Panthers winger Sean Bergenheim late in the second period of the Kings’ victory and did not play in the third. League disciplinarian Brendan Shanahan reviewed the hit and the later scrum, which resulted in the Panthers getting a four-minute power play.

The league said Friday it was a full-body check and that “while there was contact with the head, the head was not targeted either intentionally or recklessly.”

Therefore, no need for supplementary discipline.

Lombardi and Murray did not dispute that, but Lombardi was still quite upset about the four-minute power play and voiced his displeasure.

“What I didn’t like was when our players tried to respond — as they rightly should — after that whole scenario, ends up in a four-minute power play, I think that’s the real problem,” Lombardi said Friday at practice.

“You want your players to stick up for each other. That’s part of the culture of our sport, everything you try to instill, and to have to be subjected to a four-minute penalty kill on that basis, I really struggle with. That’s a bigger issue as to the culture of our game, not the call specifically.”

lisa.dillman@latimes.com

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