March 14 morning skate quotes: Dustin Brown

With the news that AEG and Tim Leiweke had reached a mutual agreement to part ways, the Los Angeles Kings lost a key figure in the construction of the team’s focus and constitution and one of its most ardent supporters. Leiweke, who had served as AEG’s president and CEO since 1996, had forged a relationship with Dustin Brown that the Kings’ captain spoke of following the morning skate on Thursday.

On his relationship with Tim Leiweke:
“I would say I knew him really well off the ice. We’ve been though a lot. Ever since I’ve been here, he was in the position he was in, so I remember meeting him my very first year. Obviously, I don’t know the whole situation. It is what it is, I guess.”

On Leiweke’s Kings passion, and whether it will be strange to not see him rinkside:
“I think it will be. I mean, AEG’s humongous, and he was very adamant and very passionate about the Kings and everything that was what this organization was about. Like I said, I’ve been here for 10 years, and he was here in the beginning when we weren’t very good, and he understands what that is like from his perspective. I think also from a players’ perspective we finally have gotten to a place as an organization where we’re a playoff team. We won the Cup. I think a lot of the last five, six years is a result of Tim, and obviously him bringing on Dean, and everything Dean’s all about.”

On what he remembers about Tim immediately after winning the Stanley Cup:
“I just remember giving him a big bear hug, really. That’s probably the one thing I remember with Tim. We’ve had conversations throughout my career. I think it kind of goes back – if you look at the team we had last year, that was the one guy from the start of it all, like that one team. If you go back 10 years, I’m the only guy…So I think he understood how special it was for me to do what we did as a team last year, and to go through the growing pains, and he was kind of there through all that. He understood why I kind of had to go through. Like I said, he’s always had my back.”

On whether he follows the Kings’ business and off-ice relationships:
“No. I mean, even with this whole thing – I know it came out today – but it’s safe to say it’s above our pay grade in this room.”

Rules for Blog Commenting

  • No profanity, slurs or other offensive language. Replacing letters with symbols does not turn expletives into non-expletives.
  • Personal attacks against other blog commenters, and/or blatant attempts to antagonize other comments, are not tolerated. Respectful disagreement is encouraged. Posts that continually express the same singular opinion will be deleted.
  • Comments that incite political, religious or similar debates will be deleted.
  • Please do not discuss, or post links to websites that illegally stream NHL games.
  • Posting under multiple user names is not allowed. Do not type in all caps. All violations are subject to comment deletion and/or banning of commenters, per the discretion of the blog administrator.

Repeated violations of the blog rules will result in site bans, commensurate with the nature and number of offenses.

Please flag any comments that violate the site rules for moderation. For immediate problems regarding problematic posts, please email zdooley@lakings.com.