Notes: Nielsen cleared to return to lineup

LOS ANGELES -- Frans Nielsen is going to try to pick up where he left off.
Nielsen had just gotten on the power play and scored a power-play goal in the first period against the Boston Bruins on March 6 when Bruins forward David Backes hit him in the head at the end of the period.

Nielsen had to leave the game but is now ready to return after missing the last three contests.
"Yeah, passed the test," Nielsen said. "In San Jose I went there before the game. They told me yesterday I was good to go. I had a good practice today."
Backes was subsequently suspended by the NHL Department of Player Safety for three games.
Nielsen is glad he does not have to any miss more time.
"You never know how bad it is," Nielsen said. "It can be small symptoms that can turn into something way worse. I guess I was lucky it wasn't that bad."
The veteran forward practiced once again with the team at Toyota Sports Center Wednesday afternoon, centering a line with Andreas Athanasiou and Justin Abdelkader.
"He's a real good NHL player," Wings coach Jeff Blashill said. "When you take Tats (Tomas Tatar) out of the lineup through trade and then you lose Frans, a real good NHL player, through injury, you just get thin in a hurry. He'll give us a good stabilizing force. He's a real good two-way player. He's a big part of our penalty kill and was starting to go on the power play when he got hurt. Hopefully he can help both of those units."
Nielsen worked on the first power-play unit with David Booth, who was taking Henrik Zetterberg's spot, Gustav Nyquist, Abdelkader and Niklas Kronwall.
While Nielsen does not have the hardest shot on the team, he does have a certain presence.
"Poise under pressure is the biggest thing," Blashill said. "He doesn't commit very many unforced errors, that's the biggest thing. He's not dynamic with his shot or anything like that. He keeps it pretty simple. It becomes a simpler power play but one where you're not shooting yourself in the foot, and I think we've done too much of that. That's why I put him back on it."
Nielsen had some success last season with Athanasiou and Thomas Vanek and is hoping that can work again with Athanasiou and Abdelkader.
"He's the kind of player the opponents have to watch out for with his speed," Nielsen said. "I liked it. I had some good chemistry with him last year, so hopefully we can get a bit of the same with Abby here."
Another plus is that a younger player like Athanasiou can benefit from playing with a veteran like Nielsen.
"I hope that it's a good combination and can give us some more scoring," Blashill said. "Anytime you play with real smart players, like Frans is, especially somebody that's been around, I think it helps, and Fransie is one of our guys that wants to hold each other accountable, so that means if Fransie does something wrong, he expects AA to say something and if AA does something wrong, he'll say something. Hopefully a good learning experience for all of them."
KINGS ARE THE KINGS: The Los Angeles Kings currently sit third in the Western Conference's Pacific Division with 82 points in 70 games, one point behind the San Jose Sharks, who have a game in hand.
The current wild-card teams, the Colorado Avalanche and Dallas Stars, also have 82 points so it's a tight race.
"Every team we've played out here and will play out there is obviously fighting for their playoff lives," Blashill said. "I think our biggest challenge is playing our best hockey. They play a real simple, methodical game. They get pucks in behind, they try to wear you down, wear you down. They got to be a real good third-period team, I'm guessing, based on their approach. If you don't get pucks deep on them it's trouble.
"The game we played in our building, we had a bunch of situations - this was a year ago in Joe Louis - we had a bunch of times where we hit hit guys in the neutral zone that were standing by themselves and had no chance to create offense. We had no shots in that game. You have to have people flowing to the puck, you have to get the puck moving north, you got to get the puck behind them."
Nielsen sees opportunity for the Wings against the Kings, provided they play the right way.
"They're good. A big team," Nielsen said. "We know they're gonna come with a heavy forecheck, so we gotta be good at giving the D a little space when they go back for pucks and get open for them. If you can break out cleanly against them you'll get some odd-man rushes against them."
FACING TOP PK TEAMS: One curious thing about this trip is that the Wings will face, in almost perfect order, the top three penalty-killing teams in the league.
It started Monday in San Jose with the top-ranked Sharks, who are at 84.9 percent, Thursday in Los Angeles it'll be the second-ranked Kings at 84.1 percent and Sunday in Colorado, the third-ranked Avalanche sit at 83.7 percent.
The Wings face the Anaheim Ducks on Friday and they're no slouch in the penalty-killing department either, ranking eighth at 82.6 percent.