Dustin Brown tries to lead Kings toward collective effort

Something is not quite right with the Kings. Dustin Brown, their captain, their heartbeat, can feel it.

He told his teammates so Sunday, after a 3-2 loss to Nashville had dropped their post-Olympic record to 3-3-1. Usually as soft-spoken in the locker room as he is hard-hitting on the ice, Brown didn’t have to shout to get their attention.

“When he has something to say, everyone listens,” winger Wayne Simmonds said. “He had said that we have to get on the same page right now. It’s something that we’ve got to listen to.”

They will benefit by taking his words to heart because Brown has seen slumps turn into morale-crushing dives in his six Kings seasons. He remembers the despair, if not the details, of the 11-game losing streak that ended his rookie season of 2003-04, of losing 12 of the last 19 in 2005-06 and seven of the final nine the next season.

“That’s what he’s trying to stop,” Simmonds said. “Since the Olympic break we haven’t been the greatest and I think each and every one of us knows that we have to pick it up.”

Like many NHL Olympians, Brown, who played for runner-up Team USA, experienced an emotional letdown after the Games. But he has pulled out of it, most recently with a solid effort Sunday and a goal that gave the Kings a brief 2-1 lead over Nashville.

“For me personally this is the most exciting time of year, this year, because normally we’re playing spoilers and we’re done and out of it, and now we have something to play for,” he said. “We need to start showing that. Obviously we haven’t been playing very well as of late, I don’t think.”

The difference is a letup in the collective effort, whether while battling for a loose puck, jostling for position in the slot or delivering a hit. This isn’t a superstar-driven team. When a few players stray from the game plan everyone will be thrown off balance.

The missing element, Brown said, is individual intensity.

“We have some guys that are, I think, doing a very good job of being ready to play, and then there’s nights when this guy or that guy — I think everyone has been guilty one night or another — but now is the nitty-gritty where we’ve got to have 20 guys going and we can’t have four or five guys not going on a night,” he said.

“There’s only so much the coaches can say and so much everyone in here can say. It comes down to your own responsibility to be ready if you’re at this level. To go out and play hockey is fun. To mentally and physically prepare for it is the hard part and what we’re paid for. A coach or a player, whatever they say, ultimately you have to want to do it yourself.”

It helps, though, to have Brown and alternate captains Anze Kopitar and Matt Greene leading by gritty example.

Coach Terry Murray has played with or coached captains who inspired teammates with a subtle word or gesture, as Bobby Clarke did in Philadelphia, and captains who worked themselves into an emotional frenzy before games, as he recalled Rod Langway doing in Washington. “All sides of it work,” Murray said.

“I think you need to be able to back up the stuff that you’re talking about, that the team is talking about, that the coaches are talking about. He’s a big part of the leadership group. It’s following through on the ice in practice, setting that standard, and the same in the game with the way Brownie goes out and gets physical, gets hard, the intensity that he brings, that’s what I like about him.”

Brown is equally intent on not allowing this slide to consume the Kings’ season.

“I don’t think it will. We grew together last year. I think that was a big turning point for the team as a whole,” he said. “A part of that is having all the guys stay together. We’re starting to trust each other.

“I think as a whole, as a locker room, you recognize when you’re in that type of scenario. When you lost three you had to really win that fourth one. Your attitude going in is to win every game. You understand the importance of kind of nipping it in the bud.”

And the waste this season would be if they don’t.

helene.elliott@latimes.com

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