Brown, on Sutter: “He pushes us, but he allows us to push back”

Dean Lombardi and Darryl Sutter spoke on behalf of the incident in Tampa in early February, with Lombardi referencing it as an example of the players taking control of the dressing room, and Sutter highlighting the nuances in the relationships between players and coaches during a particularly delicate time “that was part of us making a movie for the NHL.”

On Monday, Dustin Brown shared his own opinions and interpretation of the incident.

“I haven’t seen his comments, but I’ve had conversations with Dean,” Brown said. “Not particular to that event, but particular to about us taking control of the room and those are conversations I’ve had with him for four or five years prior to Darryl being here. Ultimately you get to that point where the players own the room. That’s ultimately I think what he wants and we’ve had this group here that’s kind of taken control of it and that’s just part of the process. Again, if you’re a competitive, winning team … again, it’s a two-way street, having that push-back.”

Brown seemed amused that the two-month old incident was raised during the season’s twilight. He definitely has grounds; it’s naïve to think that these types of incidents are isolated solely between the Kings and Darryl Sutter, or between teams outside of the playoffs and their coaches. There are most likely teams currently in the postseason that have had sore moments in coach-player relationship this season. There are most likely prior spats involving the Kings and staff during Stanley Cup years that we’ll ultimately never know about.

“I think it happens quite a bit, but I again, I also think that this little locker room thing has been blown completely out of proportion,” Brown said. “But it happens all the time, it’s not always player-coach. Sometimes it’s players-on-players. Again, it kind of comes back to demanding more of each other. Sometimes you don’t necessarily want to hear it, but it’s something that needs to be said or vice versa. There are moments on the bench or in the room after games where players have it out. At the end of the day, that’s probably healthy because if you keep it in, you’re consistently having problems. We are pretty good in that. Again, it comes back to our group, we’re pretty open with each other and honest with each other. Again, we can get on each other and then go have a beer and be fine.”

“It happens a lot, but again that’s stuff that happens behind closed doors and it happens for a reason. It’s not because one guy doesn’t like another, it’s because we’re all trying to win.”

Dustin Brown, on the team’s relationship with Darryl Sutter:
Yeah, I think he’s demanding and I think he’s pretty honest for the most part. Players and coaches are going to disagree from time to time, it’s kind of the nature [of sports]. I guess if you’re always agreeing or you’re always just saying ‘OK,’ then you’re probably not winning. That’s the thing with Darryl, he pushes us but he allows us to push back. I think ultimately that’s what creates a winning environment. We didn’t really have that prior to Darryl, quite honestly. Like I said, he’s demanding, but he’s also in return, we become more demanding of each other. Again, there are disagreements that happen but that’s the nature of being competitive. It’s done us good so far. [Reporter: Is the Tampa situation a bit of that push-back you’re talking about, in a sense?] I think it’s been a little blown out of proportion, but sometimes, at the end of the day, it’s about the 20 guys in the room. Like I said, it’s been really blown out of proportion, quite honestly. It wasn’t even that big of a deal when that happened. It was just us being a group of guys going through it together and sometimes that’s what you need.

Dustin Brown, on the feeling he had waking up after the season was over:
It’s just an awkward feeling for this group, I think. I mean it was weird waking up and having nothing to do. It’s not the situation you want to be in, but you try to take the positive out of anything. It gives us a lot of time to get better.

Brown, on whether he has any health issues to deal with:
Just general stuff. Normal stuff that I have every year – shoulders and hips and just aches – and just getting through it, so nothing’s serious.

Brown, on the potential that members of team may leave during the off-season
It definitely goes through your mind as part of being a part of that group. As much as you want everyone to stay, it’s easy to see people come in but it’s hard to see people go. It’s kind of the nature of the business unfortunately with how things work. But again, it’s not an easy thing to think about, especially when we didn’t finish this year the way we wanted to. I’m saying it’s also about trying to refocus on what we need to do to be playing.

Brown, on where Jarret Stoll’s impact is felt the deepest:
I would say probably in the room. He’s a very vocal guy, brings a lot of energy. He has a really good attitude. That’s probably the biggest thing for us is we have a lot of guys that are really positive in the room, and that goes a long way. When things get hard, try to stay upbeat because as we’ve found out, when things go south, it’s your attitude that makes the difference in pulling yourself out of it. We’ve been able to find ways to do it and this year we fell a little short, but it wasn’t from a lack of our attitude or any of that sort of thing. He’s huge in that part.

Brown, on whether the Kings were simply unable to “flip the switch”:
To put it on one thing is I think unfair to everyone. But I think what happened here, those middle part of the season games we didn’t play very well in December and January. Again, everyone talks about our shootout. We take a third and we’re home ice or whatever. Look at our third period leads. I don’t know what the stat is, I mentioned this a few days ago, our third period leads we’ve blown more this than in probably the previous four. Points add up. It’s an 82-game schedule, you’ve kind of got to keep pace throughout and I think a lot of people forget we missed the playoffs by a few points. Just to miss the playoffs by a few points, we had to win eight in a row after we played in December and January. I think that’s our second or third longest win streak in team history. So if we don’t win eight games in a row, we were done with two weeks left to go in the season. It’s a fine line.

Brown, on whether he’d play in the World Championships:
For me, I think I probably wouldn’t go. I’ve played in that tournament quite a bit, and it’s actually a fun tournament to play in, especially in a city like Prague. It’s a nice city but for me, with the amount of hockey that we’ve played as a group, and for me personally playing in the Olympics. Again, it’s one of those things, you don’t want to be done in April but this is the first time in three, four years that I’ve had an opportunity to use the summer time to make strides as opposed to getting back to square one.