March 2 morning skate quotes: Dustin Brown

On whether the team is playing at its highest level of the season:
“I think we’re definitely playing better than we did early on. I still think there’s a lot of room for improvement. I think some of our key players have been playing better hockey, and that needs to continue for us to be successful. We still have a lot of work to get to where we want to be.”

On what it says about the Kings that they’re surging despite the absence of Mitchell and Greene:
“A big part of that is the way we play as a five-man unit, six man unit. Goalies have been good, as always, for us. Some of the guys that have had to step in and play have been playing extremely well. I think it was a little bit of a learning curve there in the first few games for a few guys – just the speed of the game. A lot of these guys haven’t had a whole lot of NHL experience. It takes a little bit of time. I think ultimately, though, we’re playing better offensive hockey, which, in turn kind of eliminates the need to play that much more D.”

Given the results, on whether this current run feels like last spring:
“It’s kind of hard to compare. The games – I don’t want to say ‘the approach’, because the approach is actually the same – it’s just the magnitude of the games, I’ll call a spade a spade. A regular season game
is not the same as a postseason game. It’s just a matter of trying to keep on getting better, because you want to be playing your best hockey at the end of the year.”

On what Justin Williams brings to his line:
“It’s the same thing with Willie all the time. Kopi probably gets all the attention – and rightfully so – with his skill set, but Stick does a lot of the dirty work. His vision on the ice, he can kind of do the corner work. For not a huge guy, he’s pretty good in the corner and he finds that quick play that springs a guy or gives a guy a great scoring opportunity. A lot of times that’s me coming as the high guy because Kopi likes to get in the corners as well. I think we just complement each other really well, and Stick probably goes unnoticed.”

On what Williams has provided recently that may not show up in the box score:
“I think when you look at people, I mean you look at Kopi’s stats – a big reason why he’s getting the numbers he’s getting is Stick. Even though [Williams] has not maybe been getting the assists or the points or the goals that he wants, he’s creating havoc in front of the net. Early on when we were struggling as a line, it was pretty evident we weren’t working hard enough, and now, the Anaheim game was a good example. He had a big impact on a lot of those goals and didn’t have a point. That’s when you can tell our line’s going really well. Regardless of his point total, he’s contributing in big ways.”