Kings goalie Jonathan Quick’s road to recovery

It was especially frigid in First Niagara Center in Buffalo and Kings goalie Jonathan Quick didn’t have much work against the Sabres, going through long periods of inactivity.

This all added up to something of a perfect storm. Quick pulled his groin in overtime on Nov. 12 and has been out ever since. He returned to the ice last week and is taking small steps in his injury recovery.

The injury happened five weeks ago, to the day, and it was fresh in Quick’s mind.

“I think it was a shot that got tipped, if I remember,” Quick said after Tuesday’s morning skate in El Segundo. “You kick your leg out. It’s a motion and a save that I’ve done thousands of times. And it didn’t turn into an injury.

“I think that particular night it was a little colder than normal in the rink. Especially playing in California, it’s not usually that cold. On top of it, I think I had maybe seven shots going into the third period.

“And it’s not even seven shots where they’re spending time … they weren’t in our end too often. You try to stay loose and limber, you’re going on two, two and a half hours, three hours where you’ve only seen seven shots or whatever. You make a movement that would normally never give you an issue. You stretch out, put a little weight on it and you feel a pop.

“You know right away that it wasn’t good. But you try to finish the play to see if it is a temporary thing that will go away. Unfortunately it didn’t.”

His range of motion is improving and the pain level is becoming more tolerable.

Quick was full of high praise for the two-man rotation replacing him, Ben Scrivens and rookie Martin Jones. Jones will get the start Tuesday night against the Edmonton Oilers and is 5-0 with a goals-against average of 0.99 and a save percentage of .967.

“They’ve played spectacular, nothing short of that,” Quick said. “The team has done a great job, winning on the road in some tough buildings. Obviously, it’s great to see. But it’s tough to watch too at the same time because you want to be part of it.

“It’s the first time in my career where I sat out. I missed one [game] for the birth of my daughter a few years ago. Besides that, I’ve never sat and watched a game. It’s difficult but it’s a little bit better in that sense that we’re winning and playing well, climbing standings.”

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