Kings struggled as injured players return, stretch run schedule, a scout’s take on LA’s prospects – `

One of the pieces we like to write at ` — Who stays? Who goes? — is deployed often in the offseason and is a lively, endless debate about roster construction.

A more appropriate concept at this time of the year would be a close cousin — Who plays? Who sits? — as the Kings head into the final weeks of the season, coming off a 3-2 loss to division rival Edmonton on Thursday night. The visiting Oilers expanded their lead over the Kings to three points in the Pacific Division.

Here are some observations and thoughts, and a few takes on some of the Kings prospects from an NHL scout:

1. Kings coach Todd McLellan almost foreshadowed what transpired against the Oilers. He had talked about the difficulty of integrating players coming off the injury list, referring to the danger of bringing back everyone at the same time.

Now the Kings didn’t do that, obviously. They brought in two players from the injured list on Thursday — defenseman Matt Roy and agitating forward Brendan Lemieux.

(Defenseman Alex Edler was out with an injury, McLellan said.)

As for Roy, he got better as the game went along. Lemieux struggled but he had plenty of company. He was a minus-1 and played sparingly (5:54).

2. Roy hadn’t played in almost a month, returning to the lineup for the first time since March 12. He missed 12 games because of a lower-body injury. Against the Oilers, his ice time was 19:24, third-most among the defense corps.