Miller Ready to Contribute in Stretch Run

For nearly three months, King defenseman Aaron Miller’s world revolved around riding a stationary bike and watching his teammates battle to stay in the playoff hunt.

With every loss suffered by the Kings, Miller’s broken wrist and pinched neck nerve hurt even more. With every win, Miller’s injuries couldn’t heal fast enough.

Those are not problems anymore.

Miller quietly returned to the King lineup earlier this week in consecutive games against Phoenix. Although he didn’t score a point, his rugged and steady play on the blue line helped the Kings get two important victories over the Coyotes.

“I’m a little rusty, but I feel pretty good,” said Miller, who averaged slightly more than 20 minutes of ice time in the two games against Phoenix. “I’m out of shape, but that’s expected after being out [since Dec. 10]. I don’t feel real sound yet, but that will come.”

Miller, who signed a long-term deal with the Kings before the start of the season, has played in only 22 games. He has one goal and two assists. And he’s one of several fresh players Coach Andy Murray will have at his disposal for the Kings’ stretch run.

With 13 games left in the regular season, the Kings could have defenseman Lubomir Visnovsky (shoulder) and forward Scott Barney (shoulder) back for games against San Jose today and the Mighty Ducks on Sunday.

Goaltender Roman Cechmanek (groin) will not play this weekend, but he’s expected to return next week.

“This is the exciting time of the year,” Miller said. “It’s really going to be a tight race. Everyone is bunched together. The key for us is to keep working hard.”

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Although the Kings will still be without injured top forwards Jason Allison and Adam Deadmarsh, Murray couldn’t be happier about being close to having a full roster.

“We’re getting close with everybody,” said Murray, whose team is 5-3-2 over its last 10 games.

“We basically have 16 forwards here now, with eight defensemen and three goaltenders. It’s the responsibility of the guys who are playing to make sure that we don’t bring their playing status into question when we analyze each game.... It’s also the responsibility of the other players to stay sharp and maybe indicate that they deserve an opportunity. There’s some peer group pressure from within.”

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Starting with today’s game, the Kings will play the Pacific Division-leading Sharks four times before the end of the regular season. Those are enough games to make up an eight-point gap, but that’s not a major concern for the Kings, whose main goal is simply qualifying for the playoffs.

“By the end of those four games, maybe your perspective changes, but I doubt if it would,” Murray said. “We’re just battling to get points every night.”

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TODAY

at San Jose, noon, Channel 7

Site -- HP Pavilion.

Radio -- KDIS (1110).

Records -- Kings 27-19-16-7; Sharks 34-19-11-6.

Record vs. Sharks -- 0-1-1-0.

Update --Left wing Luc Robitaille, who leads the Kings in scoring with 45 points, will play his 1,000th game as a King today. Robitaille has 20 goals and needs 11 more to break Marcel Dionne’s franchise record of 550. Cristobal Huet will start in goal for the Kings. San Jose has the NHL’s best penalty-killing unit at home, having given up 11 goals in 123 short-handed situations.