Kevin Provencher of the Union-Leader wrote about the situation this weekend, when Buffalo put Matt Ellis on waivers and the Kings had interest in reclaiming him but felt they couldn’t because of their roster situation.

The blog entry, which explains the whole situation, is here here.

The bigger problem is, the Kings have painted themselves into a corner a bit in terms of one-way contracts. Two players who aren’t playing, Brad Richardson and John Zeiler, remain on the Kings’ roster with one-way contracts. Something is going to have to give there pretty soon, because having two healthy scratches — Zeiler remains one, even though he’s on loan to Manchester — creates tremendous roster inflexibility.

The Kings traded a second-round pick for Richardson, who then signed a one-way contract. He has played only five games this season. Zeiler signed a four-year contract last year, and this season it became a one-way contract. He appeared in 36 games last season and hasn’t played this season because of his groin injury. The Kings don’t want to risk losing Richardson or Zeiler, but they might not have a choice at some point.