Kings talk Game 4, Sutter, Brown, the San Jose series

Drew Doughty, on playing with and against Dustin Brown:
Brownie is a great leader, a great captain. He does a lot of things both on and off the ice, especially on the ice. He works as hard as possible. He cares a lot. The opponents don’t like playing against him because he hits so hard and at the same time he can make plays and score goals. When I played against him at the Olympics, basically whenever I had the puck, he was on the ice, I was trying to get rid of it so he couldn’t run me. Yeah, great captain, great leader.

Doughty, on how much the Kings have grown from the 2012 Vancouver series:
I think we’ve grown a ton. The experience from that first run helped us a lot. Guys have gotten older, better. We’ve added pieces to the puzzle. When all that happens, your team becomes a better team. We live for the playoffs. We live for these type of moments. Yeah, this team, we’re a great team, but we’re not finished what we have to do yet. We need to continue this as long as we possibly can. We have the right guys on this team, the right players. We have the possibility to go deep for many years to come.

Doughty, on whether the team discusses having been down three-nothing, given New York’s predicament:
It wasn’t easy for us to come back from 3-0 in the first series against San Jose. We know how it can happen. All it takes is one game, one momentum shift, the team can run with it, the other team can be down in the dumps. That’s why this next game is so important for us. We can’t let them back into the series. We have to take it to them. They’re going to have their best effort without a doubt and we need to have ours as well.

Justin Williams, on potentially winning a third Stanley Cup:
Well, I’m a player who really is just another piece of the puzzle that everyone is a part of here. Throughout my career, I don’t do anything flashy out there. I’m not the fastest skater. I don’t have the greatest shot. I just try and do the best I can out there with what I have. I feel my smarts and my instincts have gotten me where I am, and my competitiveness. That’s really no secret that anybody gets here for that reason. Throughout my career, I’ve just attained a goal, then kind of made another one for myself. Step by step I’ve gotten to be the player I’ve become. I want to keep getting better.

Williams, on the importance of being able to roll four lines:
Well…I know championship teams, and hopefully we can be one this year, have the same general attributes. They have goaltenders playing at the top of their game. Four good lines who can score. They’re relatively healthy. They have a D man who eats up a lot of minutes, is one of the best in the world. A lot of championship teams have that. I think we have all the ingredients right now. We aspire to be a good team for a long time.

Williams, on being a Conn Smythe Trophy contender:
I mean, that’s an award that a lot of NHLers obviously aspire to have. But at the same time when you’re presented with it, I think a lot of guys just want to put it aside and look to the big jug. That’s pretty much how I can explain it. I mean, to be even mentioned with these big guys in that conversation is awesome. But, hey, the big one is what matters. Yeah, I want to taste it again.

Williams, on developing home-ice advantage:
I think in 2012, we made a point it wasn’t important at all. Just depends how your team is playing at the time, how calm they can be, how you can manage your butterflies, your anxiety, ultimately how you can rise to the occasion. It doesn’t matter where you’re playing. But sometimes you have to weather a storm early against teams in their own building.

Jarret Stoll, on Dustin Brown’s leadership style:
I think both playoff runs, playoff games you see what Dustin Brown is all about, the physicality, his attitude. He can make plays. He can be on the power play, penalty kill. Sometimes he’s a quiet guy, but he leads by example, he leads on the ice, which is probably the most important part of leading anybody, any team. Yeah, he does a lot for our team. He sets the tone in any game he plays, whether it’s physically or making a play or scoring a big goal, he can do all those things.

Stoll, on the impact Justin Williams has had in important plays:
One word that comes to mind is how competitive he is. The type of mentality he brings. He’s a very fiery guy. You can see how much he cares, how much he loves his teammates and the game of hockey. He wants to compete so hard, so bad. Whatever it takes kind of scenario, you see that. The bigger the games get, he’s always showing up, making the big play like you said, the big play last night to Jeff. How competitive he is, that’s what comes to mind.

Stoll, on the emotions in the 24 hours after falling behind San Jose three-nothing:
Well, I think right away, initially, you know, this is me personally, I was like, “Gee, are we really down 0-3 here?” Very quickly after you realize you have to win Game 4, just win one game, start putting a little bit of pressure on them. You win one game, then you go into their building Game 5. That was kind of a turning point I thought for that series for our team, going in there and winning. Put a lot of doubt in their minds. Exactly what we do not want to do in this series. We want to have a killer instinct and play the right way, play determined, not let any of that stuff happen or think about it.

Matt Greene, on Dustin Brown’s leadership style:
I think he’s done a good job being the identity this team is built around. Hard, physical forwards with some skill. Very tough to play against. He was the driving force behind that. He delivers. He plays his game. He sets a tone for us. He’s forged an identity for himself and for our team.

Greene, on how Darryl Sutter’s personality rubs off on the team:
Yeah, it’s good. You know, I think we see a different side of Darryl than you guys do. He’s good. All the coaches do a good job of keeping us focused on the task at hand. If you had a good game the night before, that’s over and done with. You have to move on. It’s the same if you had a bad night. So it’s always kind of stay in the moment, you’re always looking forward to the next game, and they do a good job of that for us.

Greene, on the leadership role Jonathan Quick plays:
He’s a huge part of our team. He’s definitely a leader on our team. He’s there every night for us. He’s playing well, puts himself on the line every night. He does a great job and doesn’t ask for anything in return. It’s great having him back there. I think we got a lot of guys on this team who really band together, really care for each other, and he’s one of them. He plays a huge role. It’s good to have that in your goaltender.

Greene, on whether it “irks” the Kings that the Rangers have discussed “lucky bounces”:
No, it doesn’t. You just play the game, that’s it. You move on. Obviously, we don’t want to be chasing the games like we did in Games 1 and 2. At the end of day, we got the wins out of it. Like Jarret said, whether it’s deserving or not, they’re done. We’re looking forward right now. We got a big game coming up. Hopefully we take care of business better than we did in Games 1 and 2.

Greene, on what the term “puck management” means to him:
Making the right plays, maybe not making the pretty play all the time, just the smart play. Maybe a chip off the glass rather than trying to feather a puck through a guy’s skates or something like that. Might not look the best, but you want to be playing safe, smart hockey at this time of year, capitalizing on your opportunities. If it’s getting pucks deep, grinding teams down, playing our style of hockey. Might not always look the best, but I think if we play that way, we can be effective.

Greene, on whether this series represents the difference between the conferences:
You got the last two teams playing, they’re going to be good teams. We’re in a real fortunate spot right now. But this is a really good team we’re playing right now. That’s it. I don’t think there’s any correlation to that.

Jeff Carter, on the comeback against San Jose proving that this series isn’t “over yet”:
Yeah, I mean, we realize that. We realize it’s never over till you win four games. It’s an old cliché, but the fourth game is always the toughest one to get. We know we’re going to get their best effort tomorrow night and we’ll have to be ready.

Carter, on the potential of winning a gold medal and a Stanley Cup in the same year:
It’s not something I thought about, to be honest. We still got a long ways to go here. We’re not looking ahead, we’re looking to tomorrow night. We know we’re going to have to be on top of our game, have to be ready.

Carter, on Darryl Sutter’s approach when Los Angeles trailed San Jose three-nothing:
I think all playoffs, no matter what situation we’ve been in, with the guys we have in the room, the leadership that we got from our coaching staff, it’s never too high, never too low. Even when we were down three, we were still confident that if we played our game, did what we needed to do, that we could battle back and we could still win that series. This series, being up 3-0, we’re a confident group again. It’s about going out, playing our game, executing our game plan, hopefully get the job done.