New bottom-six lines

As posted earlier, the Kings will skate tomorrow with a third line of Raitis Ivanans, Michal Handzus and Wayne Simmonds, and a fourth line of Teddy Purcell, Brad Richardson and Peter Harrold. Here’s how Terry Murray explained the Ivanans/Purcell flip today…

MURRAY: “I need to play him [Ivanans] more. Not only him. It’s the three guys that are on the fourth line. We need to get more minutes for them. We’ve played a lot of hockey. We’re tied with San Jose for number of games, and I think we’re one game back of San Jose’s road number. So we’ve played a lot, and it’s been demanding with the travel. That’s just the NHL. I need to get more minutes from Richardson and Harry, and now with Raitis going up there for tomorrow’s game, I just need to get them more involved. I think it’s very demanding for your top two lines, top three lines, to be playing over that 20-plus (minutes) each night.

“I also feel that if you’re going to have special special teams, where they’re really good, you’ve got to be fresh, you’ve got to be jumping on loose pucks, you’ve got to be ready all the time. I think, with the number of minutes we’re playing 5-on-5, it takes a bit away from that side of it.”