Dustin Brown: Make or Break Season

Dustin Brown has been a beloved captain for the Los Angeles Kings over his tenure. He was the first Kings captain to hoist the Stanley Cup and second American born captain to do it. Brown led the Kings to Stanley Cups in 2012 and 2014.

"“Internationally, Brown has represented the US at 3 World Championships, winning a bronze medal in 2004, and two World Junior Championships. He won a silver medal as an alternate captain of the US National team at the 2010 Winter Olympics. Brown received the 2011 NHL Foundation Player Award for his extensive charity work in the LA community.”"

Dustin Brown also appeared in the 2008-09 All-Star Game, and won the NHL Mark Messier Leadership award in 2013-14.

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Lately though, Dustin Brown has been on the hot seat. He carries a $5.875 million dollar cap hit for a contract that doesn’t expire until 2022.

Brown played a pivotal role for the Kings in their top six when helping lead them to two Stanley Cups. But the past couple seasons have seen a decline in production across the board. He plays a physical gritty style that results in a ton of hits. He’s also one of the better players when it comes to drawing penalties.

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But his play was in such decline last season, that he was demoted to the third line and watched his ice-time plummet. With the depth coming up in the Kings organization and skilled forwards ahead of him on the depth chart, it’s hard to imagine Brown sticking around for long if he can’t turn his game around.

I don’t even see him being able to re-gain a top six role unless due to injury. The Kings organization and fans do love this guy and would love to see him earn that lucrative cap hit once again. But it may be time to start thinking about life without Dustin Brown in a Kings jersey.

If he can’t be a pivotal top six piece moving forward, then the Kings need to do their best to showcase him and get teams interested in that massive cap hit. If you’re the Kings management, you don’t want it getting to the worst-case scenario, which is ultimately buying him out. That would be disastrous.

What do you think hockey fans, can Dustin Brown find his game again in 2015-16? If not, what’s to come to Dustin Brown and where could he end up? Would anyone actually be willing to pay that $5.875 mil cap hit through 2022?

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