Kings’ Dustin Brown ready for Wild, Jason Pominville

Kings captain Dustin Brown will renew acquaintances with Minnesota forward Jason Pominville on Thursday after earning a two-game suspension last season for an April 23 elbow to Pominville’s head.

Will the Wild fans be calling for Brown’s head this time?

“Who knows? I wasn’t even thinking about it until you brought it up,” Brown said Wednesday. “Maybe, I don’t know. It’s up to them. It probably always is that way after something like that happens. Part of the game.”

What about retribution from Minnesota players?

“It all depends on how it plays out, it could go either way,” Brown said. “I’m going there to play a game. If that’s part of it, that’s part of it.”

Brown said he’s fine to play after pulling a hamstring at the start of training camp and coming back rusty in Saturday’s preseason finale in Las Vegas.

“I feel better every day, with the timing and all that,” Brown said. “The way I’ve been practicing,” with Trevor Lewis and Jarret Stoll, “I’d imagine I’m in.”

After earlier in the week hedging on whether Brown will play, Kings Coach Darryl Sutter confirmed the right wing will, saying Brown’s “game-ready.”

“Our expectation is a Stanley Cup,” Brown said. “A lot of us have gone through that process together. We have that in our back pocket. It’s about putting the work in, each and every day.”

While Dwight King skated with Anze Kopitar and Justin Williams on the first line and Brown was with Stoll and Lewis on Wednesday, Sutter declined to identify his fourth line.

“There’s no firming of lines in the National Hockey League … we have 13 forwards, it changes,” Sutter said.

One member of the fourth line could be left wing Daniel Carcillo, who was acquired from the Stanley Cup champion Chicago Blackhawks in July.

“He’s in the fourth line mix,” Sutter said. “Danny, he’s a fourth-line player. That’s what he’s shown. He hasn’t shown more than that. He’s scored double-digit goals maybe once in his career,” 12 in 2009-10, “so he’s 28 years old. He’s not going to move up. He’s in a battle for ice time with others, and that’s what he was when we got him.”

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