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L.A. captain on Murray firing: “We weren’t a hungry team”

Los Angeles Kings captain (and PHT 3rd Dud of the Week) Dustin Brown spoke with Rich Hammond of LA Kings Insider about recently-dismissed head coach Terry Murray.

While Brown has experience with coaches getting turfed -- he’s played under five different bench bosses in L.A. -- he did say it was difficult to see Murray go.

“It’s not an easy thing to go through,” Brown said. “It’s really hard to kind of put into words how you feel, as a group of guys in here, when something like this happens. I think the best thing we can do, as players, is come together and work through it. It’s part of being a professional athlete, going through days like this.”

If the Kings are going to work through their issues, Brown will have to lead the charge. He’s been a major disappointment this year with just five goals through 29 games (on pace for 14) -- a far cry from his 2007-08 season, when he finished 19th in league scoring with 33 goals.

When asked if drastic changes were needed, Brown offered some pointed remarks.

“Regardless of how we play the game, I think it’s more about our attitude, honestly,” he said. “We have to have a better, more hungry attitude. We weren’t a hungry team. We’ve got to get back to getting on the puck and having that attitude, that swagger.”

Brown’s comments are interesting given rumors that Darryl Sutter will be L.A.'s next head coach. Sutter’s most memorable coaching performance was taking a workmanlike Calgary Flames squad within a game of the 2004 Stanley Cup. That squad was defined by its hard-hat mentality (leaning heavily on grinders like Shean Donovan, Martin Gelinas, Stephane Yelle, Chris Simon and Chris Clark) and you’d have to think Sutter would try to instill the same mentality in the Kings.