Five championship veterans are big part of the Kings’ rebuild

When you’ve been to the mountaintop, you’re spoiled for anything else, right?

So consider the five veterans of the Kings’ Stanley Cup champions of 2012 and 2014 who are still with the club and helping nurture the franchise’s next generation. Whether Dustin Brown, Anze Kopitar, Drew Doughty,

Jeff Carter and Jonathan Quick ever lift the Cup again may depend on how quickly the kids are whipped into shape, but there seems to be a confidence and optimism in

Dustin Brown the room that suggests those veterans have gotten through that valley and are again headed for higher ground.

The Kings are a point out of a playoff spot going into tonight’s home game against Arizona. They’d won six straight before a couple of hiccups in Minnesota last weekend, including back-to-back wins in St. Louis against a Blues club that is one point out of first place.

Brown’s 11 goals are tied for the West Division lead — though, as he’d noted last week, he’s 18 behind Toronto’s Auston Matthews — while Kopitar is 11th in the league in points. Doughty is second in the league in ice time and has been a mentor to 21-yearold defense partner Mikey Anderson, Carter is still a dangerous second-line winger and Quick and Cal Petersen have become an effective 1 and 1A tandem in goal.

But it’s what they’re passing along that will be a valuable contribution for years to come.

“They have been here

Anze Kopitar

for so many years and had lots of success in the league, so they obviously know the right way to go about things,” Anderson said on a Zoom call Tuesday. “Whether we have a question or they have input on something we can do, they’re not afraid to let us know and try to help us out.

“In the locker room, that goes a long way. It helps us all feel comfortable. And those guys have done a terrific job so far with all the younger guys.”

It’s part of hockey’s circle of life. Doughty talked Monday of the lessons he’d learned breaking in and the guy he’d learned most of them from.

“Matt Greene,” he said, referring to the big defenseman who arrived in L.A. from Edmonton in 2008, the year Doughty broke in, and was a King through the end of the 2016-17 season.

“He was a mentor to me,” Doughty said. “He’s like a big brother. He took me under his wing in my first season. And ever since then and still to this day, if I have any leadership issues or questions I’m calling Matt Greene. I think anybody that’s ever played with him can tell you he’s one of the best leaders

Drew Doughty

they’ve ever seen.

“I’m not the same leader he is. I go about it a different way. But there are a lot of things that I took from him that I use in my leadership skills.”

Let there be no mistake: For proud veterans who have been champions, going through the slog of a rebuild can be really difficult. It takes strength mentally and emotionally to deal with it, to be a good teammate and a leader and mentor where necessary.

“We’ve chosen those five to be here for a reason,” coach Todd McLellan said last week. “They have championship characteristics and qualities that they spread throughout the locker room on a daily basis. We can win 3-0 (or) lose 3-0. They’re still doing the things we need them to do to bring young players along, and it’s such a good environment to be a young player right now. (I’m not) surprised one bit at what they’re doing.

“The transition years are hard on veteran players. You won with a lot of your buddies and you see them leaving. You don’t really believe in what’s coming until you see it and you get to play with it for a while. The hardest thing is transitioning

Jonathan Quick

from one group to the next. The five guys have bought into what we’re doing. They’re very coachable. They spread the word quite well from the coaching staff on through the players.”

If they weren’t productive, of course, this wouldn’t work no matter how much information they could impart.

For players like Brown and Doughty, who had been pretty much written off by observers throughout the league, both team and personal success could be a “told you so” moment if they’d wished to consider it that way.

“I think everyone is probably surprised outside of the room,” Brown said when asked if people should be surprised by his team’s emergence. “I think we have a good team in there. We’re kind of building on some of the momentum we had last year and the confidence. And to be honest with you, we have some young players coming in and kind of learning on the fly and doing a pretty good job of that.”

Maybe the seven-game winning streak before COVID-19 halted the schedule last March should have been a sign. The Kings

Jeff Carter

were well out of contention by that point and weren’t invited to the Western Conference bubble in Edmonton later that summer, and maybe that stuck in their collective craw, too.

“I don’t think it’s the first time people doubted players in this room, so it’s a pride thing for sure,” Brown said. “I think if you’re not prideful, you’re probably not still playing in the league. I think everyone has a little bit of that in them.”

Few expected the Kings to be in the playoff hunt when this shortened season began, but as Doughty put it: “If anyone doesn’t think that we can potentially make the playoffs, what’s the point of coming here every day? That’s what we’re playing for.”

So the veterans might also want to plant this seed at the appropriate time: At the end of the 2011-12 season the Kings were the No. 8 seed in the Western Conference, and they wound up going 16-4 in the playoffs and lifting the Cup.

The odds may be steep, in other words, but if you get in you have a chance.