July 18th, 2013
The Kings have secured another cornerstone of their franchise for nearly the next decade. On Thursday, LA extended captain Dustin Brown’s contract for 8 years, worth a total of $47 million. Although most of you were told there would be no math here at Jock Talk LA, that equals a very reasonable cap hit of $5.875 million per season.
Brown was so eager to remain with the franchise that drafted him 10 years ago, that he even negotiated his own deal. On a conference call, he explained that “going into this, I did my homework and did comparisons and received help from the (NHL) Players’ Association on some numbers and stats.” He’s also well aware that he may have taken less money in order to be a part of a winning team.
“I realized in a cap era that there’s only so much money to go around, and with the cap going down this year and not having that certainty what it will be next year, there’s an opportunity to keep this team together. That was part of my decision in wanting to stay because I believe we have a chance to win.”
The 28 year old Brown has scored 181 goals and 388 points over his 641 career games. Over those 9 seasons, he’s also appeared in 50 playoff games, and totaled 31 post season points. In 2012, he led the Kings to the franchise’s first ever Stanley Cup championship, and he piled up 20 points over that 20 game post season run.
This past season, Brown scored 18 goals and 29 points in 46 games. He also helped the Kings reach the Western Conference Finals before losing to the eventual Stanley Cup Champion Chicago Blackhawks.
Brown is the 9th Kings player locked up to a long term deal by General Manager Dean Lombardi. The others include Drew Doughty, Jonathan Quick, Anze Kopitar, and more recently Slava Voynov.
Despite losing a few minor role players such as Dustin Penner and Rob Scuderi this off-season, the Kings still have a team that should be able to contend for Stanley Cups the next several years.
The Kings also made several other moves, naming former Norris Trophy Winning defenseman Rob Blake assistant general manager after Ron Hextall joined the Flyers. The also acquired forward Daniel Carcillo from the Blackhawks in exchange for a conditional draft pick in 2015.