Kings look to tie team record, O’Donnell talks about milestone

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The Kings, who will be vying for a club-record-tying eighth straight win tonight when they face the Ducks at Staples Center, will have a few minor lineup changes.

Coach Terry Murray took out winger Scott Parse and put Brandon Segal back in on the right side with Alexander Frolov and Michal Handzus. The first and second lines are the same — Brad Richardson-Anze Kopitar-Wayne Simmonds, and Ryan Smyth-Jarret Stoll-Dustin Brown — but the fourth line will be comprised of Raitis Ivanans, Oscar Moller and Peter Harrold.

Murray said he needed more consistency from Parse, who has only one goal in his last 13 games after enjoying a stretch of three goals in five games.

‘I have spoken pretty highly of him in the past. He has scored some spectacular goals for us,’ Murray said. ‘He teases you a little bit with that because you want that high energy, that intense play all of the time and right now as a young player coming into the game there’s that top end and then there’s a bottom that’s a little bit too low for me right now. I need to see that get pushed up to a higher level so the consistency shift after shift, game after game, is there.

‘And I can’t exclude Teddy Purcell from that. We need the same. We’re starting to become a pretty good group. We’re playing some good hockey in some very difficult games and you have to have some predictability from the coaching side of things as far as how players are going to respond in those situations.’

Murray said that with both Purcell and Parse, ‘I’m looking at sometimes competitive board play, not coming up with pucks, decisions with the puck, not moving their feet at the right time. And that’s where it has to come from. It lies in their lap. This is a conversation we’ve had, coaches with the players. They know, I believe, what we’re asking and it needs to be there every day.’

Getting to the point

I was remiss the other night in not mentioning that defenseman Sean O’Donnell recorded his 200th career point Tuesday with an assist on Smyth’s goal, which held up as the winner in a 2-1 victory over the New York Rangers.

O’Donnell graciously accepted my apology, saying it almost got past him too.

‘A friend of mine texted me the other night and said, ‘200 points. wow,’ ‘ O’Donnell said. ‘And I went onto my computer to see. I thought it was a big day for the Dow Jones. I had remembered, but I had forgotten.’

He recorded his first point on Feb. 20, 1995, with an assist in an 8-2 loss to the Canucks.

‘It was in the old Vancouver arena and it was a goal scored by Kevin Todd. Gretzky was on the team. It was the lockout year,’ O’Donnell said. ‘I had two assists that season. It was only 15 games. I would have had a lot more in a full year.’

O’Donnell needed 1,066 NHL games to reach 200 points. That’s a rate of 0.1876 points per game. Just for comparison, teammate Drew Doughty had 69 points in 137 career games, a rate of 0.5036 points per game.

How fast will Doughty reach 200 points? ‘I don’t think it’s going to take too long,’ O’Donnell said.

More later at www.latimes.com/sports

-- Helene Elliott