Kings’ Dustin Brown agrees to eight-year, $47-million extension

Dustin Brown’s captaincy of the Kings transitioned from the epic moment of lifting the Stanley Cup for the first time to negotiating his own contract extension to ensure he can try to do it again.

The Kings announced Thursday that following a handful of meetings and telephone conversations with General Manager Dean Lombardi, Brown, 28, agreed to an eight-year, $47-million extension through the 2021-22 season.

The average annual value of Brown’s contract is $5.875 million, an increase from the $3.5-million salary the right wing will earn this season in the final year of the prior six-year deal negotiated by his former agent, Scott Norton.

“I was more comfortable doing the contract on my own given the history I have with this team,” said Brown, a nine-year King who counts Kings owner Philip Anschutz and his wife, Nancy, as friends. “That goes a long way in my comfort level to be in negotiations.

“We cut through negotiating tactics with no agent. If I had an agent, I believe I would still be in negotiations.”

Also Thursday, the Kings announced that their all-time leading scoring defenseman, former captain Rob Blake, is the team’s new assistant general manager. He replaces Ron Hextall, who left for the same job in Philadelphia.

Brown didn’t have any designs on leaving town.

“It was well known Brownie was due a bigger contract,” Lombardi said. “Every facet was in place. It was just a matter of coming to a fair number. He wanted to keep this team together. It’s what you’d expect your captain to do.”

Brown watched from afar last season as Ducks stars Ryan Getzlaf and Corey Perry negotiated during their final contract year, striking deals midseason.

“It should be about hockey,” Brown said. “I didn’t want it to be a distraction. It gets quite old when the No. 1 question people ask you every day is, ‘Are they going to extend you?’”

Instead, Brown is among an impressive core of teammates signed at least through the 2018-19 season, a list that includes goalie Jonathan Quick, forwards Jeff Carter and Mike Richards, and defensemen Drew Doughty and Slava Voynov.

The Kings, who advanced to the NHL Western Conference finals this season on the heels of the franchise’s first Stanley Cup title, have invested an additional $40 million-plus in Anze Kopitar, Justin Williams, Robyn Regehr and Jarret Stoll through at least the next two seasons.

Brown said he consulted with his sister, who’s a lawyer, a friend with legal experience and the NHL Players’ Assn. to determine his wage scale.

“Within the cap, we have an opportunity to keep this team together,” Brown said. “It’s not only our core, but with the guys we have locked up, that’s an important reason for our success. We weren’t built to win the Cup one year and disappear. It’s now all coming into place, and that was a big reason I wanted to stay. We’re in a good spot.”

Brown has been a King throughout his nine-year NHL career and the captain since 2008. He had eight goals and 20 points in the stirring 2012 playoff run, and said he didn’t play as well as he could have last season, which ended with his playing on a torn knee ligament suffered in the playoffs.

“We still made it to Game 5 of the Western Conference finals,” Brown said. “We’re going to push each other in the summer to be ready. That’s the type of environment you want to be part of.”

The 2009 NHL All-Star has appeared in 50 playoff games and has 388 points, 25 game-winning-goals and 452 penalty minutes in 641 regular-season games. He also won a silver medal as a member of the 2010 U.S. Olympic team.

lance.pugmire@latimes.com

Twitter: @latimespugmire

Times staff writers Helene Elliott and Lisa Dillman contributed to this report.