from Pierre LeBrun of ESPN,

"Not going to go anywhere with Regehr or Mitchell," said Sutter. "It does me no good to talk about our injured players, just helps the other team."

What we do know is that Regehr and Mitchell are injured -- two-thirds of the left side of L.A.'s defensive corps -- two playoff-savvy veterans who are hard to replace. And that void represents the most obvious difference between this Kings team and the 2012 champs.

Amazingly, Los Angeles used the same six defensemen during their 20-game run to glory in 2012, avoiding a single injury and throwing out the same three pairs night after night. That's certainly not going to be the case this spring, which means the Kings have adversity to overcome if there's another deep playoff run in their near future.

"It's not so much that they've lost high, high-end defensemen, it's what they're putting in,'' an NHL head coach from a Western Conference team told ESPN.co Sunday. "Matt Greene is limited. And whether it's Jeff Schultz or Andrew Campbell going in, either way, they don't trust those guys as much. Where the biggest disadvantage comes for L.A. is that Anaheim will continue to play four lines. So over time it will be become taxing to the Kings' top guys.

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