Kings' Stoll doesn't skate, Coyotes' Gretzky doesn't show

Kings center Jarret Stoll, troubled by arthritis in his right wrist, didn't participate in on-ice activities at training camp today, the second straight day's work he has missed. He had said Sunday that he hoped to get back soon, but he didn't skate with Group B and again was replaced by Oscar Moller at center between Teddy Purcell and Dustin Brown. I'll get an update later.

The Kings will play their first exhibition games -- yes, games, plural -- on Tuesday, when they play split-squad games against the Coyotes at Glendale, Ariz., and at Staples Center. It's not likely that Coyotes Coach Wayne Gretzky will be behind the bench in either place: Gretzky stayed away from his team's training camp today, the third straight day he has not performed his coaching duties, and a Coyotes spokesman said it hasn't been determined whether Gretzky will return Tuesday. The safe bet is that he won't be there while the fate of the club remains uncertain. In the meantime, assistant coach Ulf Samuelsson has been running things at the Coyotes' camp.

A Kings spokesman said that the club would send mostly young players to the game in Arizona and that newcomers Ryan Smyth and Rob Scuderi would play in the game at Staples Center. Coach Terry Murray is expected to disclose the lineup later today, so we'll update you on that, too.

-- Helene Elliott

Photo: Kings forward Jarret Stoll. Credit: Christine Cotter / Los Angeles Times

Dwyane Wade at center of another good guy athlete story

Our Helene Elliott wrote about an act of kindness committed by the Anaheim Ducks earlier this week.

Here's one that's going to be television Sunday, courtesy of ABC and Miami Heat star Dwyane Wade.

Wade has befriended a young heat fan named Michael Stolzenberg who nearly died from a bacterial infection. Wade visited Stolzenberg the day after Wade hit a three-point buzzer-beater against the Bulls in double overtime.

It's worth a look and like Helene said, we're always eager to write about miscreant athletes. Being willing to write about some good things doesn't hurt.

The piece will air at halftime of Channel 7's broadcast of the Detroit Pistons-Miami Heat game Sunday. The game begins at 10 a.m. PDT.

-- Diane Pucin

Photo: Dwayne Wade during a game against the Lakers on Feb. 28, 2008. Credit: Stephen Dunn / Getty Images

Canadiens 'concerned' about three players' tie to alleged criminal

Montreal Canadiens General Manager Bob Gainey addressed his team and the media Friday about a report in the Montreal newspaper La Presse that had linked three players to a Montreal man arrested on drug charges.

Gainey said the Canadiens are "very concerned" about the report, which said brothers Andrei and Sergei Kostitsyn and defenseman Roman Hamrlik had ties to Pasquale Mangiola, who was arrested earlier this month in what Montreal police have dubbed "Project Axe."

Mangiola faces weapons, drug possession and drug trafficking charges, but the report said the Canadiens players are not suspected of any criminal activity.

La Presse reported that investigators tapped Mangiola's phone and monitored conversations with the Kostitsyn brothers, for whom he did various favors such as having their cars fixed, providing them vodka, introducing them to women and picking them up after games.

After obtaining a search warrant against Mangiola, detectives found financial records, some with the Canadiens' crest, belonging to the Kostitsyns.

The Kostitsyns are Belarusian, and Hamrlik is Czech.

"I can only go on what I know today, and what I know today is not good," Gainey said. "It doesn't reflect well on our team or the individuals.

"It must be extinguished as a possible inhibitor to our performance. Our message today was that we want to do things as players and individuals to come as close as possible to our potential, or surpass it."

The league is monitoring the situation through its security department. "The NHL is aware of the reports and is in the process of gathering additional information," Deputy Commissioner Bill Daly said in a statement.

Gainey, during a team meeting, cautioned all players to be careful about the people with whom they socialize or otherwise associate.

"We get requests from charities," he said. "But there are also not good people who are looking for trophy friends or the possibility of being close to someone who earns $1 million-plus."

Coach Guy Carbonneau told reporters Friday that the team must "deal with the allegations and try to protect our players better."

Andrei Kostitsyn told La Presse he knew Mangiola but that he didn't know anything about his situation. Neither Andrei Kostitsyn nor Hamrlik was made available to the media Friday.

Sergei Kostitsyn was sent down to the team's AHL affiliate in Hamilton, Canada, a few days ago. He told reporters there that he couldn't comment on the report.

The NHL tries to keep a close eye on players' associations with potentially unsavory characters. The league has a security department, and each team has a security officer.

In the late 1990s, the league's biggest concern was reputed Russian mobsters who were pressuring prominent Russian players for protection money and often blackmailed them with threats that targeted players' families back home.

The revelations are the latest in a tumultuous week in which Gainey acquired defenseman Mathieu Schneider in a trade and told standout forward Alexei Kovalev to stay home and ponder his poor play, moves that haven't stopped the team's slide. The Canadiens, a powerhouse over the first half of the season, are 3-11-1 in their last 15 games. Kovalev is expected to rejoin their lineup on Saturday against Ottawa.

--Helene Elliott

Kings Coach Terry Murray juggles things, puts Teddy Purcell on top line

Terry Murray has juggled his line combinations again, putting newly promoted winger Teddy Purcell on the top line with Anze Kopitar and Patrick O'Sullivan and moving Kyle Calder to the second line with Jarret Stoll and Dustin Brown for tonight's game against St. Louis at Staples Center.

He also rearranged the defense pairs, putting Kyle Quincey with rookie Drew Doughty and placing veteran Sean O'Donnell alongside Matt Greene to reduce what became a heavier workload than O'Donnell could effectively handle. The third pair will be Denis Gauthier with Peter Harrold. Erik Ersberg is scheduled to start in goal.

Purcell was leading the Kings' Manchester, N.H., farm team in scoring with nine goals and 19 points in 23 games. He played 10 games for the Kings last season but didn't make the team out of training camp this season.

Murray said the changes up front are intended to coax some scoring out of a team that produced only 11 goals in its previous five games and 70 in its first 27 games, the lowest total in the Western Conference. The arrival of Purcell, projected to be a top-six forward, made this the right time to try some new configurations.

"I was thinking of making some changes in the line combinations and in the D pairs anyways," Murray said. "We just need to try to find a way to generate some more offense. ... Just looking through the numbers, I think there should be better numbers from our top two lines."

O'Donnell, 37, was averaging 21 minutes, 18 seconds of ice time per game while partnering with 19-year-old Doughty. Murray had come to realize that was too much -- and that Quincey, one of the most pleasant surprises for the Kings this season -- had earned a chance to play more minutes.

"I just see a difference from the first 15 games, when he was outstanding," Murray said of O'Donnell. "He's still making huge contributions, but there's some situations that have developed over the last few games that I know it's just a matter of having to dig down too deep night after night to get the job done. So this is gonna give him an opportunity to regroup."

Purcell acknowledged that he was upset to be sent to the American Hockey League but then took to heart the suggestions that he should battle harder and more consistently for loose pucks.

"I came with no gear, and I was a little bummed out about that," he said, "and then they tell me I'm playing with Sully and Kopi. You can't really get much better than that. It's a great opportunity for me.

"I've just got to get those guys the puck and get open because they both can make plays."

Derek Armstrong, hit hard into the boards during the Kings' 6-1 loss at Colorado on Tuesday, left this morning's skate early because he didn't feel right. He was scheduled to be examined by team doctors tonight.

"Stuff was happening a little bit too quickly for him out there, so err on the cautious side with that," Murray said, adding that he had not heard anything about the possibility of Armstrong having a concussion.

-- Helene Elliott

Photo: The Ducks' Ken Klee tries to block the Kings' Teddy Purcell from going after the puck in a game in October. Credit: Christine Cotter / Los Angeles Times

What was Colorado Avalanche's Joe Sakic thinking??

We admire and like Colorado Avalanche center Joe Sakic, a stand-up guy and clutch player through the years.

But we have to ask: Joe, since you were already out of the lineup because of a herniated disk in your back, what were you thinking when you tried to clear your driveway and broke three fingers during an unfortunate encounter with a snowblower?

Sakic isn't expected back before March.

-- Helene Elliott

Photo: Colorado Avalanche center Joe Sakic. Credit: David Zalubowski / Associated Press

Kings' Terry Murray: 'We can be a playoff team'

The standings say otherwise -- and so does common sense -- but Kings Coach Terry Murray said Friday that he believes his team can make the playoffs.

That was mildly startling, given the Kings' inability to hold third-period leads against Toronto and Phoenix in the two games they played before facing Columbus on Friday night at Staples Center. And given their lack of depth up the middle -- and erratic scoring, which left them with the fewest goals in the West and five points out of eighth place before Friday's scheduled games.

Murray isn't afraid to say what he thinks, as evidenced by his quote, while coaching the Flyers against the Red Wings in the 1997 Stanley Cup Finals, that his team was in a "choking situation." Which it was.

Maybe his remarks after Friday's game-day skate were meant as a test to see how his players would react to the bar being set higher than any other Kings team has reached since the 2001-02 season.

They surely didn't pass that test in the losses to the Maple Leafs at  home or to the Coyotes at Phoenix. In the latter game, Murray benched Alexander Frolov for a defensive lapse that helped the Coyotes tie the score, even though Frolov is the team's top goal scorer.

"When I now look at our hockey club after these many games and see how we have played, and (with) 17 one-goal games going into the third period, we are capable of becoming a playoff team this year," he said.

"I didn't know what to expect at the start. With so many new players and young guys that we had in our lineup, you have a group of players, basically. That's all you have, and you're trying

Wake-up call: Drew Doughty, Brandon Marshall, Kobe and Shaq

First things first: Rookie defenseman Drew Doughty makes the Kings worth watching. Even though the opponent was the Florida Panthers (now 4-7-1), it was fun to see him make one play after another that for long stretches kept the Panthers from even having shots on goal. At one point in the third period he flew down onto the ice, fully stretched out at precisely the right second, to poke away the puck and shut off the play (see picture above). The 18-year-old Doughty, who was the Kings' first-round pick (second overall) in June's entry draft, also had two assists last night. As Helene Elliott notes in this morning's column, it wasn't a perfect game but ...

The Panthers, near the bottom of the East and in an 0-4-1 slide, were flat. The Kings weren't much better, barely holding on to end their 0-3-2 slide after Nathan Horton's shot deflected off the foot of teammate Richard Zednik and past goaltender Erik Ersberg to pull Florida within 3-2 with 50.2 seconds left.

To the Kings, who are now 4-6-2 and starved for rewards after coming oh-so-close in one-goal losses to the Red Wings, Flames and Ducks on this homestand alone, the victory was a thing of beauty.

Add Kings: Goalie Erik Ersberg played well enough, however, to get a win and is now 1-1 with a 1.61 goals-against average. He made some terrific glove saves in the game that no doubt gives Kings fan hope.

Ducks' turn: The streaking Ducks (8-0-1 in their last nine games) host the Dallas Stars tonight. In Chris Foster's notebook, goalie Jean-Sebastien Giguere tells him that you ain't seen nothing yet.

Talking about gloves: If you didn't see last night's game between the Denver Broncos and the Cleveland Browns, then you missed one of the oddest moments this season. Late in the game, Broncos receiver Brandon Marshall scored a TD (the winning one, it turned out) and started pulling something from his pants. It was a black-and-white glove, designed to pay tribute to Barack Obama. That's against NFL rules. No props allowed (remember the popcorn and Sharpie incidents with Terrell Owens?). But there won't be a fine in this case because teammate Brandon Stokley intervened. You can see the the photo here of what Marshall was doing. Nice thought to pay tribute to Obama, but using the gloves to celebrate would have brought a penalty, with the Broncos up by only four. Brian Billick, the former coach of the Baltimore Ravens, was on the Dan Patrick show this morning and said this about Marshall's idea: "If it's going to cost your team, it's a bad idea. If that penalty cost you three points and you lose, that's bad. Billick said there are a number of ways to show your support without putting your team in jeopardy."

Gloves off: Our NBA columnist Mark Heisler takes on the saga of the Lakers in his new book, "Madmen's Ball: The Continuing Saga of Kobe, Phil and the Los Angeles Lakers." In an excerpt, the author writes about the start of Kobe Bryant's and Shaquille O'Neal's last season together. Here is a part of that:

Every day, Black [John Black, Lakers publicist] announced [Kobe] Bryant would only take basketball questions, but it was the reporters' job to ask other questions, and Bryant often answered them. When a CBS producer asked Bryant about that day's events in court, Black lifted her credentials on the spot. After Newsweek's Allison Samuels wrote a tough cover piece, she couldn't even get credentials.

For his part, [Phil] Jackson regarded this as the usual hysteria, like that which he'd turned to his own advantage in Chicago. He jauntily told the press he would show players "how to dodge questions that you guys present," and said Bryant's situation might actually be a "boon" that brought them together. Everyone else in the organization was considering alternative careers.

-- Debbie Goffa

Top photo: Drew Doughty is face down on the ice as he reaches to break up a play the Calgary Flames' Brandon Prust. Credit: Hector Mata / Associated Press

Pop-up photo: Denver Broncos wide receiver Brandon Marshall starts to pull a black-and-white glove from his pants after an 11-yard touchdown catch in the fourth quarter of the game against the Browns Credit: Mark Duncan / Associated Press

Kimmie Meissner gets through bumpy practice

Everett, Wash. -- Kimmie Meissner, still seeking the form that helped her win the 2006 world figure skating championship and 2007 U.S. title, had a rocky session Friday as she practiced for the start of the women's competition Saturday at Skate America.

Meissner, of Bel Air. Md., fell four times in her warm-up and again on a double axel while practicing her long program. She also appeared to be off balance on a couple of landings and touched her hand to the ice on landing a toe jump.

Richard Callaghan, who took over as her coach shortly before the last World Championships, said the process of rebuilding her confidence and her technique continues.

"Since the end of May I think we've had the time to go back and correct some jump techniques and work on the speed of the spins and the jumps," said Callaghan, the coach of 1998 Olympic gold medalist Tara Lipinski.

"We had to take things apart a little bit, but things have come back together pretty good, I feel. This is the very first time she's shown the long program so she was worried a little bit about that. Her legs were very tight today, so some of the things that happened today I thought were great because she was so tight. There were a few too many mistakes."

If there were a best practice award, it would probably go to Yu-na Kim of Korea, who sailed through her warm-up and routine with an easy grace and solid jumping skills. Kim, the bronze medalist at the last two World Championships, trains in Toronto with coach Brian Orser, the 1984 and 1988 men's Olympic silver medalist.   

More later on the ice dance compulsory dance, the pairs short program and the men's short program, all taking place later today.

-- Helene Elliott

Photo: Kimmie Meissner performs in this afternoon's ladies short program practice at Skate America. Credit: Timothy A. Clary / AFP / Getty Images

Practice doesn't make perfect for Mirai Nagasu

Everett, Wash. -- Defending U.S. figure skating champion Mirai Nagasu of Arcadia will make her senior-level international debut at Skate America despite a tender right ankle, her coach, Charlene Wong, said after the women practiced Friday at Comcast Arena.

The women's competition will begin Saturday. In Friday's practice, Nagasu performed her long program but left out several jumps. Wong said that was by design.

"She's dealing a little bit with an injury that has actually plagued her for quite some time," Wong said. "There's progress being made, though. She and her parents chose, based on the information they received from the doctors, she chose to do kind of like the swimmers do. When swimmers get an injury, they stay in the water as much as possible. She chose to stay on the ice as much as possible and just abstain from the moves that would aggravate her ankle.

"In the last two or three days, it hasn't really been bothering her that much. I'm happy about that. I'm happy for her because she can skate with a sense of fearlessness."

Wong also said Nagasu is adjusting well to a growth spurt -- she's 5-foot-3 -- and a newly mature body.

"She definitely grew, and she filled out," Wong said. "I'm so excited that she grew. I'm so excited that she's filling out. Personally I don' t really like to see little girls competing against young women, and Mirai now can hold her own physically and also in her emotional production with some of those more sophisticated athletes that we've been seeing the past couple of years."

--Helene Elliott

Photo: Mirai Nagasu carries flowers, her medal and a flag after winning the women's figure skating championship at the U.S. Figure Skating Championships in St. Paul, Minn., in January. Credit: Tom Olmscheid / Associated Press

How about a Kings 'All U Can Win' night?

A visit by the Detroit Red Wings to Los Angeles used to be an automatic sellout, but apparently no more.

The Kings, recognizing that they can't guarantee a playoff spot, have done the next-best thing to woo fans back after five straight non-playoff seasons and while the team continues its perpetual rebuilding process.

The Kings are promoting an "All U Can Eat" value package for Monday's game at Staples Center. The $27 deal includes a ticket and unlimited hot dogs, sodas, nachos, peanuts and popcorn. Note that adult beverages are NOT included.

The last few seasons, watching the Kings was often hazardous to your health. Now, if you get sick, you can blame it on too many nachos.

On a more humanistic note, the Kings also designated Monday as "Hockey Fights Cancer" night. The Kings and Red Wings will wear special helmet decals, and coaches and players will wear special ties to commemorate the event. A number of initiatives to promote this cause will take place during the game.

-- Helene Elliott

Photo: With a sellout crowd watching, the Kings Patrick O'Sullivan looks to turn around and shoot the puck against the Red Wings' Pavel Datsyuk as goalie Chris Osgood defends in a game last January at Staples Center. Credit: Alex Gallardo / Los Angeles Times