The always chatty Willie Mitchell talks about his impending Kings return

Kings defenseman Willie Mitchell smiled faintly when asked Thursday if he was getting impatient while awaiting his first game since the 2011-12 season after suffering a knee injury that knocked him out for all of the lockout-shortened 2012-13:

“It’s just, I guess, more rewarding. That part of it is fun, of working to give myself this opportunity, and working to this point to, hopefully, help the team out again. I know I can do that as long as I stay healthy. I guess the anticipation of that is there. But the game itself is just taking it as what I’ve done for however many years I’ve played, is that it’s just another game, just another preseason game, and the same preparation, the same work, the same all that. Just because I haven’t played in 14 months, I don’t think it’s like all of a sudden it’s like you don’t know how to think anymore.  I think my strength as a player is reading and reacting and thinking the game well, and that’s what I’m going to go out and do, is try and work on my reads, work on the positioning, my timing and all that, and holding that down and keep improving that every day so I can bring what I think I can bring to the table and be a good teammate so we can get going.”

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