He could have resorted to empty words and clichés after losing his Kings captaincy following a long tenure that included two Stanley Cup championships.
Instead Dustin Brown made it clear that the decision to replace him with Anze Kopitar following the Kings’ first-round playoff loss was “a bitter pill to swallow.”
“It was a management decision, not like the players voted on it or anything like that,” Brown said Thursday during a conference call with reporters. “Quite honestly, it would have been a lot harder if it was my teammates doing this.