Brown to get a statue, have number retired
The Kings will honor Dustin Brown by retiring his number and unveiling a statue of the two-time Stanley Cup champion on Feb. 11, when the Kings host the Pittsburgh Penguins at Crypto.com Arena.
Brown will become the seventh Kings player to see his number raised to the rafters, joining Wayne Gretzky, Marcel Dionne, Dave Taylor, Rogie Vachon, current general manager Rob Blake and current Kings president Luc Robitaille. Gretzky and Robitaille are the only other Kings players to be featured in individual statues at the arena.
“With my number going to the rafters, I am honored to be amongst the King greats, but it makes me think of the two banners already in the rafters, of which I am most proud,” Brown said, referring to the Kings' Stanley Cup titles. “It took numerous people to raise those two banners. The same is true for this one. Thank you to all who have helped me achieve my dreams.”
Brown captained the Kings to titles in 2012 and 2014, the only two seasons in which the Kings captured the Stanley Cup since entering the NHL in 1967.
“We were so fortunate to have him for so many years,” Blake said. “He was the captain of two Stanley Cup teams. There's not a lot more that we need to say. He's been everything to the franchise.”
The impact of Brown was felt not only by the Kings but the other 31 clubs in the league. Brown is the NHL's all-time leader in hits, though the stat was not tabulated officially until his third pro season. He proved a symbol of ruggedness and determination across 18 grueling campaigns.
“To play that long and that physical and that hard, that's truly incredible,” Robitaille said.
Brown played all 1,296 games of his career as a King, more than any other player in franchise history, and 92 playoff games as well, including seven at the end of last season. Though his closest friend Anze Kopitar was wearing the captain's C, Brown emotionally spearheaded the Kings' gutsy effort to push the favored Edmonton Oilers to seven games of their firstround series.
“(Coach) Todd (McLellan) came to me during that series and he said, `The biggest leader we've got going right now is Dustin Brown,'” Blake said.
The Kings have long enjoyed an atmosphere of leadership by committee, during their glory days and the rebuild that followed. That was, in large part, due to Brown's openness toward his teammates.
“If you're the captain of the team, you have the final say in everything, right? With Brownie, that wasn't the case,” former Kings center Jarret Stoll said. “He wanted all of us to have a say, he wanted all of us to have a voice on what type of team and culture we wanted to have and create here.”
And what a culture Brown created, reaching the pinnacle twice and making a third conference finals appearance in between.
A shy, unassuming teenager from upstate New York arrived in Los Angeles after being selected 13th overall in the 2003 NHL draft. The Kings had exemplary figures for Brown in their midst, players like Ian Laperrière and Mattias Norström, but little in the way of a well-defined identity. Brown soon became the youngest captain in franchise history, at age 23, and the Kings' first American-born captain.
“When he got here, there was no culture here, there was no winning culture here,” Stoll said. “He built that, a lot of us built that all together as a group, and he was a huge part of that.”
Robitaille called the No. 23 banner and Brown sculpture in Star Plaza, which will be designed by Julie Rotblatt Amrany and Omri Amrany, a “well-deserved honor.” Robitaille also took the opportunity to laud Brown's presence in the Los Angeles community and his broader contributions to the organization, as he did when Brown announced his retirement earlier this year.
“They've given us an opportunity, running the business, to elevate the Kings franchise to another level. But it had to do with their play, their play matched what we did in the city,” Robitaille said. “He's the first captain to raise the Stanley Cup. You can never take that away; that will always be the most special thing that happened to this franchise.”