With a spot on the opening night roster, Brandt Clarke is ready to seize his surreal opportunity - LA Kings Insider

Last updated Oct 11, 2022 Edit Source

• News post

• Zach Dooley

• Brandt Clarke

• Todd McLellan
• Rob Blake

As the LA Kings hit the ice for practice this morning, donning their chrome helmets in advance of tomorrow’s season opener, one, slightly legible number stood out amongst the rest. 92.

I went with 92, 55 is my original number but obviously Q has that. My brother wears 92, so it’s cool that if we can both make the NHL, we’ll wear it together, and my birthday is also February 9, ninth day of the second month, so that works out well too. I also think it looks pretty sharp. – Brandt Clarke

It’s surreal, it’s something I’ve been working for my entire life really, it’s been a goal of mine. I’ve really ramped it up since knowing this was real possibility. They’ve given a real opportunity to showcase myself and I think I took advantage of that, I’m just stoked to be here. This is a dream of mine. I love the players here, I love the staff here and I’m thrilled to be on this team. – Brandt Clarke

Brandt knows who Brandt is, he knows what’s in his toolbox, in his toolkit. He hasn’t played with fear and what I mean by fear is not the physical part of it, it’s the fear of erring on the ice, he makes plays, the intense plays. He’s been very coachable throughout training camp. Potentially away from the Kings, I could see where that confidence or that swagger could be misread in other environments, where it could hurt him, but with us, not one bit. – Todd McLellan

It comes down to making sure that when he does get the lineup, he’s going to get the right amount of minutes to keep developing. His play through rookie camp and training camp has put him to a level where we want to see him in the NHL and that kind of went into the decision process. Now, the step is to make sure that it keeps going that way and we’ll let that play out here for the first little while and probably have to reevaluate [later on]. – Rob Blake

I think he can play in all situations, including penalty kill, which can give you an opportunity to get the minutes needed to keep developing at the NHL level. Power play, obviously, you see the deception and his hockey IQ, but also defending, he’s good in a sense with his defending. He’ll have to learn to protect himself a little bit more, there are guys who are bigger and stronger at this level than in juniors. I think his all-around game, there are a lot of aspects that would allow a player when he does get in the lineup in the regular season to maintain those minutes that are going to help him progress. – Rob Blake

We’ve tried quite a few [players] over there, Sean Walker’s played there at times, I think we’ve got to get him comfortable coming back from the surgery before we experiment again with the left side. We saw Sean Durzi slide over there and make that transition really easy and we’ve used Clarke over there a couple of times. The availability to open up that left side within our defense can increase [the chances of] getting Brandt in the lineup and getting him the minutes he needs. – Rob Blake

You see the professional attitude around here, it’s really telling and if you want to stick here, you have to bring the same attitude every day in practices, games, workouts. It’s really been an eye opener how seriously everyone takes it, how determined everyone is here. I’ve tried to match that, I’ve had to bring my ‘A’ performance every single day because if not I’m going to fall behind and I wouldn’t be on this team right now. That’s something I’m pretty proud of with the consistency that I brought and I’m going to try to continue it. – Brandt Clarke

We’ll see what happens. Whether I’m in the press box or in the lineup, either way it’ll be pretty soon. I’m just really appreciative to be here and thrilled to be on this team. – Brandt Clarke