Culver City Observer -

The spark for the LA Kings hockey team has finally ignited the flame as they had a six-game win streak up until a loss to the Minnesota Wild last night. Only one other team in the NHL had the same win streak.

During that winning streak, the Kings outscored their opponents 22-7 which makes head coach Todd McLellan happy, since he's been wanting more scoring from his team in order to have success this season.

McLellan has been making changes, tweaking, and making improvements with his team since the start of the season and now all that strategizing is starting to pay dividends.

Dustin Brown, who played in his 1,200th NHL game this past week, is seeing his career be resurrected. Brown has 11 goals which is the best in the West division and is tied for fifth in the NHL.

"I think we have a good team," Brown said. "I think we're kind of building on some of the momentum we had last year, and the confidence. To be honest with you, we have some young players coming in and kind of learning on the fly and doing a pretty good job of it. So you have a pretty good veteran core group and some other spots are starting to get filled in by some younger players, which is a good thing for us."

With a record of 9-7-3, they're battling for the fourth spot in the West with the Colorado Avalanche and the Arizona Coyotes. If the Kings keep performing at this level, there's a good possibility of capturing one of the four playoff spots in the West.

"We're in the thick of things now and that's where the fun begins, really," captain Anze Kopitar said. "You want to play meaningful games going into March, going into April, and in this case, that's where we want to be. And we want to keep improving on our game and we want to keep climbing."

Brown, at 36 years of age, might seem like an elder in the league, but he isn't letting his age stand in the way and is using his experience as fuel for his resurrection.

“You look at some older players that play in the league for a while, they might slow down a little bit but thinking the game is a huge part at this level and you learn, you just get better if you’re paying attention,” Brown said. “I think the game much better than I did when I started. Each year I’ve tried to get better. I think that’s the key, just trying to get better every year regardless of age. Age is just a number and it will catch up, but if you put the work in, you can continue to excel. There’s a lot of room for me to still improve.”

Expect Brown to continue to be a physical force in front of the opponents net and be that hard-working player that he’s been for many years with the Kings. He is definitely reaping the fruits of his labor this season.