For a young team, why not a young captain?
And for the Kings in particular, what better young player to serve as captain than Dustin Brown?
Brown, who celebrates his 24th birthday next week (Nov. 4), was named captain earlier this month, filling the vacancy created when last year's captain, Rob Blake, signed with San Jose. He is the youngest captain in franchise history, joining a fairly impressive list; the last five players to serve as captain are Dave Taylor, Wayne Gretzky, Luc Robitaille, Blake and Mattias Norstrom.
In a sport where the captain's position is both a formal one (the captain carries a C on his jersey, er, sweater to denote the position, since it includes communication with the officials) and one with a distinguished history of leadership, it's clear the title resonates with the native of Ithaca, N.Y.
"I was excited," Brown says, recalling the announcement of his captaincy. "I looked forward to it. Me and Terry (Murray) had meetings this summer about it. I told him I wanted to take on that responsibility, that challenge. ... I'm excited about being here, and being a big part of this team and where we're going. So when that happened, it was obviously a huge honor and a lot of excitement. But at the same time, you're a little bit nervous. I mean, I've been a captain before" -- in youth hockey -- "but it's a little different at this level.
"Very few people get to wear a letter, let alone a C, in this league, so it's an honor."
And, he says, a responsibility -- "making sure people are on time, making sure everyone's prepared. A lot of logistical stuff, the way we dress, making sure everything's ready, how it's supposed to be."
Murray likes Brown as a captain because of what he embodies on and off the ice.
"He certain has got some instinctive leadership, and his heart and gritty play is a great way of showing leadership for me, for this young hockey club. We want to play the style of game that he plays -- hard work, heavy player, he's a physical player, he scores those goals that are hard-work goals.
"And the other side of it, off the ice, he has a great deal of compassion for the young guys, and for this organization. He's been here now for five years, came in as an 18-year-old, and really has a great handle on what it's like as a young player, to come into this game and onto this team, and experience it. So he's passing that along. He's helping young guys out, he's talking to them all the time."
There are certainly plenty of those players around, given a roster that includes 18-year-old Drew Doughty, 19-year-old Oscar Moller, 20-year-old Wayne Simmonds and six other players younger than Brown -- one of them, forward Anze Kopitar, one of the two assistant captains. (Defenseman Matt Greene is the other.)
"We have a lot of young guys here that haven't been in the league that long and might not know exactly how everything works," says Brown. "It's not only me. We have plenty of guys in here who can help out. It's kind of a joint effort, really."
If there's one part of the captaincy that didn't come naturally, it was serving as the on-ice liaison between the team and the referees.
"I'm used to it now," Brown says, "but I remember the first couple games, I kind of forgot I'm the one who has to go over there. Now, it's almost I do it instinctively."
In the process, he's expanding his circle of acquaintances.
"Before, I could probably name four or five referees'," he says. "Now -- I don't know 'em all yet, but I'm starting to get to know them pretty well. So now it's a little different. You kind of know them more personally."
Murray doesn't want him knowing them too well, though.
"The important thing ... is not to go to the referees too often," says the coach. "You just can't get into that kind of a habit because they stop listening after a while.
"But I think as you go through a game and you see as a team you're working hard, you're really trying hard, and you're getting, maybe in your mind, the odd penalty that you don't think you should have had, that it's good for the captain then to skate over to the referee and say, 'Look, we're really trying. We're working hard and really trying and just need a level playing field here.' And that's all he needs to say. I don't want him to get into being, quote, a whiner."
A leader? Well, that's a different thing all together.
"He's saying things in the locker room between periods that's the right stuff," says Murray, "about digging in and doing the right stuff in the system and sticking with it, and working on our game. And I really like everything that he brings to our team.
"He is a good captain, and he's going to be a tremendous captain."

First or second? Monday's 4-3 loss to Detroit was the Kings' first shootout of the year, and as such the first time to see what Murray's philosophy is on the great coaching choice of the tiebreaker: Do you want to shoot first or last?
Murray came down Monday on the side of going first. Dustin Brown and Oscar Moller were stopped, Pavel Datysuk and Henrik Zetterberg scored, and the Red Wings came away with the extra point.
"It is a philosophy," said Murray. "I've seen it go both ways. I like to go first. We have confidence in our players that we can get out and get the lead and put some pressure on teams. It didn't work tonight, but it will in the future."
The odds will be better, of course, when the opponent isn't one quite as talent-laden as the Red Wings.
"They've got some pretty good players they can put out in the shootout," noted forward Patrick O'Sullivan. "Shootouts are fun when you win, but when you lose, it kind of stings a little bit."

Good feelings: The Kings may have lost, but saw much to like in the way they played. For example, there was the basic concept of driving hard to the net, which paid off directly in goals for Moller and Kyle Calder, and indirectly in the Alexander Frolov goal that gave L.A. a 3-2 lead. (As he drove, he tried to making a crossing pass, but it went off a Detroit player and into the net.)
"We're trying to get that mentality solidified," said Murray. "It's starting to come -- get pucks to the net, drive to the net, and look for loose pucks. And two goals ended up being that. ...
"It's starting to come, and we'll keep patting away at it."
In the bigger picture, the team felt good about the way it competed, even though it squandered a lead late in regulation on a fairly egregious giveaway by Denis Gauthier.
"I really believed at the end of the night that we felt we deserved to be on the same ice with that team," said Murray. "They're the Stanley Cup champions and they've been one of the premier teams in the league for the last dozen years. ... In general, we played well. We showed a lot of competitiveness, we worked very hard, we showed intelligence, we found people at the right side on the checking side of the game."
Said forward Patrick O'Sullivan, "I think after the first five, 10 minutes, we settled into our game and saw that we were going to be able to compete with them, and we gave them a pretty good run. ...
"Overall, I think we have to be happy with the game, and we can build on it."

Digging into the numbers from CLU's 16-7 win over Chapman:
Tough to score against: If you're thinking CLU has never played defense quite like it's playing right now, you're almost right.
Saturday's win over Chapman marked the third time this year that CLU has held an opponent to seven points. The Kingsmen have not had three such games in a season since moving to NCAA Division III in 1991. Nor, as a Division III program, have they had a five-game stretch in which they held opponents to 14 points or less, as is the case during their current five-game win streak.
To find comparable accomplishments, you have to go well back in the CLU record book. The last time CLU had three games allowing seven points or less in a single season was back in 1985, when a 6-5 campaign included a 28-7 win over Sonoma State, a 34-7 defeat of Western New Mexico, and a 24-3 defeat of St. Mary's. The last time the Kingsmen did it more than three times was in 1982, when the Kingsmen had three shutouts and a 21-7 win over Humboldt State. That team started the season 5-0, and allowed just 32 points in those wins to better the 48 points allowed in the current streak.
Still, since the first game in 1982 was a 34-16 win over Occidental, you have go go back another year to match, and better, the five straight games allowing 14 points or less.
The 1981 Kingsmen, who started 0-2, won their last eight games and never allowed more than 14 points in the process, giving up a total of just 65 points during the streak.
So CLU has played defense like this before. But it's been decades.
Tough to move against: The 139 yards allowed was not a CLU record -- the Kingsmen allowed just 26 yards to Caltech back on Oct. 30, 1965 -- but it is a fairly rare accomplishment. Football box scores are available on CLU's athletic website, clusports.com, back as far as the 2001 season, and Saturday's total equaled the low figure in the 69 games for which yardage stats are available. (The Kingsmen also allowed just 139 yards in beating Menlo 54-0 on Oct. 8, 2005).
Put another way, CLU has held opponents to less than 200 yards three times this season (Pacific Lutheran finished with 186 yards and Whittier had 192). In the previous seven seasons, CLU held opponents under 200 yards just five times, and never did it more than once in a season.
Tough to reach the end zone: Saturday's game was the second time this season CLU has won 16-7 -- the Kingsmen did it earlier against Pacific Lutheran -- but such low-scoring games have been a rarity during CLU's SCIAC era. In fact, since joining the SCIAC in 1992, CLU has only played in six lower scoring games: a 10-9 win over Azusa Pacific and a 14-3 defeat of Whittier in the first two games of the 1993 season; a 9-0 loss to Pomona-Pitzer in 1995, a 10-6 win over Chapman in 1996, a 6-0 overtime win over Occidental in 2002, and a 14-7 loss to Willamette last year.

Welcome back.
A little late (thank/blame the Olympics, the Angels, the Dodgers), it's time to restart the online hockey notebook -- hopefully a weekly endeavor, but we'll see how that goes with other time demands, etc. Not sure if it will be an every-Tuesday event or if it's going to float around; for now, I'd suggest checking in on Tuesdays (if nothing else, I'll try to tell you when to come back) and watching for the note in the print edition.
As was the case last year, the focus will be on the Kings and Ducks.
Anyway, here's the first installment.
Stunning, and not in a good way: Never mind the final score. The most significant thing about the Kings' 4-3 loss to Colorado on Monday may have been the crowd. There wasn't one.
Since Staples Center opened on Oct. 17, 1999 with a Bruce Springsteen concert, I'd estimate I've been in the building hundreds of times. I have never seen it emptier than it was for this game.
At a guess, it was less than 40 percent full for the opening face-off, which would put the attendance under 7,250. This being L.A., fans kept trickling in for a while thereafter, but I'd be hard-pressed to believe there were as many as 10,000 people on hand. We'll never know, of course, since the announced attendance of 13,891 is based on tickets distributed, not tickets used. (Even though, you know, the term "attendance" should indicate the number of people who actually attend.)
Yes, the economy is bad. But still, it's jarring to see this few people at a game. Since moving to Staples, the team has averaged better than 16,000 every season, regardless of how good or bad (OK, mediocre or bad) it may have been.
So is it strictly the economy? Is the formerly loyal fan base sending a message that it's been turned off by one too many price increases, and one too many seasons out of the playoffs? Or, more likely, is it some combination of those factors?
And perhaps more to the point, what if anything can the team do about it?
Based on early returns, it appears tracking the Kings' attendance is going to be as significant as tracking the results. So far, those numbers aren't good. After selling out the home opener, they had an announced 14.451 for last week's game with the Ducks, which used to be an automatic sellout. Up next at home (next Monday) is Detroit, another team that historically has been good for a full house.
As for actual hockey ...
Growing pains: An 18-year-old playing in the NHL is going to have some growing pains, but the highs and lows are rarely going to come as dramatically as they did in a six-minute span for Kings rookie defenseman Drew Doughty.
With 3:28 to go in the second period, Doughty was absolutely undressed as part of a highlight-reel goal by Colorado's Ryan Smith (I'm sure it's already up on YouTube) that gave the Avalanche a 4-2 lead.
"It hit my foot first and went back to him," said Doughty, the No. 2 pick overall in this year's draft. "So it was kind of a lucky bounce on his part. But I still have to be taking the man in that position. So it was partly my fault but definitely a lucky bounce for him."
But 2:25 into the third period, Doughty scored his first NHL goal to cut the lead to 4-3.
"It was awesome," said Doughty. "It was so good to finally get that goal just to give me that boost of confidence. After that goal, I was more in the play and rushing the puck a little bit more, and so it was really good.
"Obviously it would have been better to win the game, but it was really good to get that first one."
Murray was pleased with Doughty's resilience.
"After a tough goal against there in the second period, on what ends up being the winning goal, he had no (ill) effect whatsoever," said the coach. "Just a great effort on that goal to show poise and handle the puck and come in off that left-wing side with a great shot."
He wasn't the only Kings player to get his first NHL marker. The first Kings' goal of the night was by rookie center Oscar Moller, who's much, much older than Doughty -- all of 19. He banked his in from a bad angle off Colorado goalie Peter Budaj.
"It was only a matter of time before these young guys were going to get their first goal," said Murray. "And it's great to see it happen so early in the season, quite honestly.
"Moller's goal was a veteran play, throwing the puck to the net. You never know what's going to happen. It's the right play when you make that kind of play. But it's usually an experienced guy who ends up doing it."
Not sure how they're going to celebrate their first goals, but champagne is not going to be part of the plans. Well, not legally, anyway.
Shouldering his burden: The good news for the Kings at Monday's pregame skate was that Jack Johnson was on hand. The bad news was that his left arm was in a sling, and you won't be seeing the defenseman back on the ice any time soon.
Johnson is on the mend after surgery to repair a torn labrum in his left shoulder, suffered in the Oct. 12 game with San Jose.
"I knew right away there was a problem," Johnson said. "Like any other stubborn athletes, I said, I'll go out and hopefully it will go away, and kept playing. And I knew it wasn't working for me, so there was no point in pushing it this early in the season, or this early in life, so I packed it in for the night."
And then some. Johnson said the doctors have told him to expect a three-month recovery period.
"Hopefully I'll be back sooner than that," he said. "My foot" -- a fractured right foot that caused him to miss the last seven games last year --
healed quicker than they told me it would heal, so I'm hoping my shoulder will be the same case."
The surgery fixed more than just the torn labrum, he said, calling it a "tune-up ... (I) had stuff repaired that happened to me previous years, in college and juniors, and it turned out to be something that was well needed. And I'll be better for it in the long run, better for it in three months because my shoulder will be pretty much on a clean slate again."
Quincey's case: Johnson's injury led to the acquisition of defenseman Kyle Quincey off waivers from Detroit. The 23-year-old made his debut Friday against Carolina, logging more than 21 minutes and collecting an assist in a 4-3 win. That had him back in the lineup Monday night.
"You know, the game was really good the other night," coach Terry Murray said before the game. "There's some area that he gets a little bit of that pressure-up kind of a look, and it put a little stress on us. I think there was one on the 4-on-4 where he got caught in the offensive zone, trying to make a play, but overall, his composure with the puck, his breakout, his handoffs, his vision on the ice is very good. And he has a bit of an edge to his game on the physical side of it, so I'm going to keep going with him right now."
The 23-year-old Quincey, a fourth-round pick by Detroit in 2003, averaged better than 120 penalty minutes in three seasons with Detroit's Grand Rapids (Mich.) AHL affiliate. He came into the season with 13 career NHL games over three seasons, one goal, four penalty minutes and a plus-minus of minus-3. Monday night, he played 25:47 and was plus-1.

Some odds and ends from CLU's 44-13 win over Pomona-Pitzer this afternoon:

A bit more from CLU's 44-13 win over Pomona-Pitzer in CLU's homecoming game at Mount Clef Stadium:

-- CLU's first six plays were a 22-yard pass from Jericho Toilolo to Jesse Matlock, a 10-yard run by Antoine Adams, a 46-yard pass from Toilolo to Matlock (for CLU's first touchdown), an 11-yard run by Danny Hernandez (who lined up at quarterback), a 13-yard run by Hernandez (who took a pitch and eluded at least three would-be tacklers behind the line of scrimmage) and a 13-yard run by Matlock. That's six plays, six first downs and 115 total yards. Not a bad start.
"It's hard to explain," said coach Ben McEnroe, "but there's definitely a feeling you get when you get on a roll offensively, and just feel like, from a play-calling perspective ... everything you call is going to work.
"There's a lot to be said about momentum. We have some big-play capabilities on the field, and Jericho does a good job managing it."
That early run was one of two occasions when Hernandez lined up at quarterback. He called those opportunities an "adrenaline rush." McEnroe said the Kingsmen would continue to showcase that look on occasion.
"He threw his first incompletion in practice this week," said the coach. "In that package we've got a couple of throws."
There was actually a pass called for Hernandez on Saturday, but he tucked the ball in and ran.
"He made a smart play," said McEnroe. "We would like to use that guy in a lot of different ways. He's a dual threat back there at quarterback, which is more than some of the schools that run these kinds of packages can say."
-- Toilolo had a very efficient day, completing 18 of 27 passes for 278 yards and running for another 26 yards.
"He seemed really comfortable today," said McEnroe. "Made some nice plays with his feet, made some nice plays with his arm and his head. He's just a smart guy. He managed a nice game."
It's hard to remember, given the impact Toilolo had last season before being sidelined by broken ribs and a punctured lung, that he still is relatively inexperienced as a collegiate quarterback. As McEnroe noted, this was just Toilolo's eighth collegiate start. The Kingsmen are 6-2 in those games.
-- CLU was flagged for 12 penalties, including two that gave Pomona-Pitzer first downs inside the 5-yard line on the Sagehens' first scoring drive. One of those, a celebration call after CLU broke up a pass into the end zone, left McEnroe more than a bit irked.
"I was a little disappointed with some of the penalties," he said. "Obviously, we don't have any control over that other than showing our kids on film and addressing it. Whether it was a good or bad call is irrelevant. We need to get some of those things straightened out, because in a closer game, it might come back to bite us."
-- CLU is now 12-7 all time against Pomona-Pitzer, 7-3 in SCIAC competition. Since the infamous (to CLU) 9-0 loss to the Sagehens in 1995 -- also known as The Game That Cost Joe Harper His Job -- the Kingsmen are 5-1 against Pomona.

ANAHEIM -- If you're wondering about the most likely scenario for Jered Weaver to pitch in the Angels' playoff series with Boston, think extra innings, or at least the potential for them.
"I think our intent right now," said manager Mike Scioscia, referring to Weaver and Jon Garland, the two starters working in the bullpen for the Division Series, "is to use them if we get in a situation of extra innings, or possibly late in the game on the road where they could take it for a fresh inning and go as long as they could.
"I think it gives us a nice option with those two guys with so much length, to really get matchups early on and not have to save anybody for extra innings."
Scioscia figures Weaver and Garland might need a little more time to warm up than pitchers used to working out of the bullpen, but in the scenario he envisions, "it won't be much of an issue."

Other pregame notes:
-- Although a number of pitchers have done extremely well pitching on just three days of rest in the playoff races, Scioscia doesn't see a return to the four-man pitching rotation that was common as recently as the 1970s -- and was last used by Bob Boone with the 1995 Kansas City Royals.
"I don't think it's any problem going once or twice around a rotation on three days' rest," he said. "A whole season, I think that's going to be a cultural change in where baseball is right now.
"It's going to have to start in minor league development and it's going to have to carry us up to the major leagues if you're going to go that route. There is a reason, I think, teams went to a five-man rotation at some point, and it probably has helped to lengthen some careers. ...
"I think there are very few pitchers in Major League Baseball that could handle that, just for how they've been stretched out and trained for most of their careers."
-- Predictably -- both because it can be significant and because there's no storyline that can't be beat to death in the wait for a series to begin -- much is being made of the injuries to Red Sox players J.D. Drew, Mike Lowell and Josh Beckett.
Drew and Lowell were both in the Game 1 starting lineup, with Red Sox manager Terry Francona reiterating that Drew, in particular, had looked good in the workout leading up to the series opener.
"I think J.D. had probably his best day in a while yesterday," Francona said. "Mikey Lowell -- I don't want to speak out of turn, but I think he actually did better than we thought."
Which is not to say Lowell is feeling healthy.
"This really hurts, I'm sure it's painful what he's gone through," said Francona. "His willingness to play, he deserves a chance here. ... We're proud of his efforts."
Scioscia, whose own team had injury problems in the postseason a year ago -- Gary Matthews Jr., Vladimir Guerrero, Garret Anderson and Bartolo Colon either played through health problems or missed the sweep at the hands of Boston -- wasn't exactly going out of his way to sympathize when asked about the Red Sox' situation.
"I think at this point, every team is banged up," said Scioscia. "I think what Boston is dealing with, you've got some professional players that know what it's about, and know what they have to do."