Brown moves on after ending goal drought

Dustin Brown was one of two Kings to end a scoreless streak on Thursday night, even if there was a friendly dispute over who actually should get credit for the third Los Angeles goal.

Brown’s goal opened the scoring in the 8-2 rout over Edmonton and ended a personal 19-game drought. It was his first goal at home since he scored on Cory Schneider in the second period of the 5-3 loss to New Jersey on January 14.

Naturally, the circumstances of the goalless drought had crept into his mind.

“As much as you try not to think about it, you think about it naturally, and that was probably one of the longer ones of my career. I remember I had a 15 or 16-game one a few years ago, but… I’ve been saying this, there are two types of slumps. Slumps where you’re not getting a sniff or not getting any looks. I think this last one…it’s kind of ironic that’s the one that goes in the net, it’s a sharp-angle shot. I’ve had point-blank chances that I haven’t been able to bury. It’s frustrating to go that long without a goal, but it’s also probably more frustrating to go half that time and not have any chances. It’s just about staying with it, trying to stay with it. Much like the team game, there are ebbs and flows throughout the year.”

Brown’s decreased shooting percentage is one factor in the goalless streak that came to an end against the Oilers. After scoring on 11.1% of his shots from 2009-13, he scored on 7.7% of his shots in 2013-14 (totaling 15 goals) and now sports an uncharacteristically low 6.1% shooting percentage in 2014-15, having scored 11 times on 179 shots.

The discussion then veered towards how he grips his stick – literally, not figuratively.

“I have a lot of sticks going. I switch my sticks quite a bit,” Brown said.

Dustin Brown, on finding comfort in a stick:
Just like flexes, sometimes the pattern changes, but I’ve been in the same curve all year this year, but it’s just been different. [Reporter: You’re not superstitious that you use the same stick again every game?] No , I generally use one stick for two or three games and I go to the next one. Now, the way they make them, they’re all pretty much identical. [Reporter: You’ve heard stories about guys who can practically build a house with ones they’ve discarded.] Yeah, everyone’s played with players that are superstitious about their sticks. [Reporter: Who was the most superstitious?] That I’ve played with? Probably Simon Gagne, I think weighed his sticks, right, Grange? That was a whole other extreme. [Reporter: To what end?] I don’t know, I just saw him in there with a scale.

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