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Move to top line has been a welcome change for the Kings’ Dustin Brown

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Kings center Anze Kopitar and right wing Dustin Brown have been reunited, playing on the same line for nearly two weeks.

Two weeks feels like almost two months in the changeable line-combination world of Kings Coach Darryl Sutter. Who knows? It could be tweaked again Tuesday when the Kings play the Winnipeg Jets.

Still, the move is significant in terms of Brown’s career. The Kings captain had been out of the mix, mostly playing a bottom-six role last season. You wondered, at age 30, if he would ever reclaim a place on one of the top two lines.

“Personally, you always want to be in that top-six role,” Brown said. “I was there earlier in my career. But I didn’t play very well the last couple of years, so it was understandable.

“The flip side of that for me is I understand I’m a player that can play in a lot of different roles, so that’s an advantage for me. I can contribute on the first line and I can contribute on the third line or the fourth line.”

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Kopitar’s line has been refashioned since the season opener. He started with left wing Milan Lucic and winger Marian Gaborik, who was moved from the left side to the right. After two games, Lucic joined center Jeff Carter and right wing Tyler Toffoli.

In Sunday’s 3-2 win over the Edmonton Oilers, left wing Tanner Pearson was elevated to Kopitar’s line and Gaborik was demoted to the third line. The balance has helped spark the Kings’ five-game winning streak after they lost their first three.

For Kopitar and Brown, the comfort level comes from years and years of on-ice history.

“We’re pretty familiar with each other,” said Kopitar, who has scored two of his three goals in the last two games. “It’s easy to come back to your original linemates. There’s no secrets to our game. I guess what I’m trying to say, it maybe takes a little bit less time to get used to one another.

“We were thrown in the mix with Gabby and Lucic and Lucic coming here and trying to get his feet underneath him. It’s almost like a snowball effect where things didn’t go well and Darryl had to break us up. Now it feels like we’ve found some balance and we’re going to try to keep it going.”

Even when Brown and Kopitar haven’t been on the same line for extended periods, they’ve killed penalties together.

“Pretty much since he came into the league we’ve been PK-ing together,” Brown said. “That goes a long way in reading off each other.”

Brown knows he has to produce to maintain his presence in the top six. He has two assists in eight games and had a team-high eight shots on goal against the Oilers. His career high of 11 shots on goal came against Edmonton in 2008.

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“Earlier in my career, we weren’t a team like we are today,” Brown said. “Now it’s not about goals and points. Obviously I have to produce if I’m in a top-six role. If you look at me and Kopi, early in our careers, we were all over the place. But we weren’t very good.

“Now it’s just about wins for me, personally.”

Non-goal fallout

The league’s situation room had all the available angles of the play involving Kings goaltender Jonathan Quick and Edmonton’s Connor McDavid, including the grainy-looking image where it appeared that the puck had crossed the line in the waning seconds of Sunday’s game.

Quick had dived to his left to make a glove save on McDavid’s shot with 5.2 seconds to play in regulation. Part of Quick’s glove clearly crossed the goal line, but the puck inside the glove was not visible. It was ruled no goal, the video replay review upheld the call since the puck couldn’t be seen, and the Kings won, 3-2.

Mike Murphy of the NHL addressed the ruling and the particular angle via email, explaining that the reverse angle showed the puck “on the line but NOT conclusively OVER the line.”

Murphy added that television enhances the view but makes the clip “more and more grainy which distorts the line and the puck.”

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Bottom line: The league, as it said in the situation-room explanation, felt the play was inconclusive. When that occurs, it goes with the call on the ice.

KINGS AT WINNIPEG JETS

When: Tuesday, 5 p.m. PST.

On the air: TV: FS West. Radio: 790.

Etc.: Jets forward Alexander Burmistrov was fined $4,166.67 for an incident in which he elbowed Wild defenseman Jared Spurgeon in Sunday’s game.

lisa.dillman@latimes.com

Twitter: @reallisa

Times columnist Helene Elliott contributed to this report.

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