Dustin Brown, who was benched by Kings Coach Darryl Sutter for much of the third period of the team’s 3-2 loss to Toronto on Thursday, did not practice Friday because he’s ill, Sutter said.

Goaltender Jonathan Quick also missed practice because of a flu-like illness, Sutter said. Quick didn’t come to the team’s El Segundo practice rink Friday; Brown was at the facility but declined interview requests.

“We’ll see how they are” Saturday, Sutter said. “We just want to make sure this doesn’t go through our team.”

He also said backup goalie Martin Jones is prepared to start against the Ducks on Saturday at Staples Center if need be.


Sutter was critical of the Dwight King-Jarret Stoll-Brown line after Thursday’s game, saying the trio was “tired” and so he let them sit in the third period. Brown played only 10 minutes and 12 seconds, with only 2:45 of that in the third period. King played 12:53, his lowest ice time in five games, and Stoll played 13:23, which ranks among the lowest ice time he has recorded in a game this season.

“I agree that we didn’t have our best game, obviously,” King said Friday. “I think in the third and late in the second we had some shifts that were the way we were capable of playing all game, but we were a little slow on our reads, not quite strong enough on pucks. When you play teams like that, that are transition teams, rush teams, you’ve got to control the pace and play with the puck and we didn’t do it until too late in the game.”

Stoll said Brown “will be fine.” Stoll added, “I thought we had some pretty good chances to score some goals. We just didn’t capitalize on it. We were sloppy. We were a little sloppy to start the game and a little bit throughout the game and we’ve got to clean it up. We know we have to clean it up. It’s just making sure we’re all doing it collectively and over the course of a game, and not just in spurts here and there.”.