Talking Hockey Nicknames with Brandt Clarke! | LA Kings

Talking Hockey Nicknames with Brandt Clarke! | LA Kings

Welcome back to All the Kings Men. I’m joined today by defenseman Brandt Clark, number 92 on the ice, number one in your hearts. How you doing, Brandt Clark? I’m doing well. Doing well. Thanks for having me. So, my first question, I was doing a little bit of research on you. Sorry I was cyberstalking you. Um, you obviously play hockey. Your brother plays hockey. Your sister plays hockey. Your dad played hockey. Your cousin plays hockey. Your uncle played hockey. Your nickname is Clarky. Yes, it is. Yeah. Presumably your brother’s nickname on his team is Clarkkey. Your sister’s nickname on her team is Clarky. I believe so. Your dad, your uncle, your cous, they all You can’t all be Clark. So like when you go to a family reunion, when you’re hanging out with your family, who’s Clarky? Like what do you call each other? No. Yeah. And back home in Ottawa cuz me and my brother are always skating together and stuff like that, I’m usually just known as B and he’s G. Okay. And then M your sister. No, she’s Mac and my dad is just dad. Sure. Like but um No. Oh yeah, there’s a lot of clarky. I only get clerky when I’m down here, but like everyone back home like my trainers and everything cuz Yeah, cuz so there’s no confusion. I’m everyone just calls me B. I like I got the hat on and everything. Just I was just going to ask I was going to ask is that because your name’s Brandt or is that it can’t be? I’m not No, I’m definitely more of a Blue Jays fan. Yeah. So, but I don’t know. I like the I like the hat. So now B and G don’t sound exactly alike, but if somebody’s yelling across a room really quickly and you don’t necessarily hear it, do you ever do you and your brother ever both turn around and say, “What?” I’d say so. Yeah. Crowd. Yeah. Yeah. It does happen. Um is Have you ever had a nickname on any team that wasn’t clerky? Not really. No, it’s always been clerky on every team I’ve ever been on. All right. There’s not much Yeah. confusion there. So I think that’s just pretty standard. So, from what I could glean from the internet, everybody in your family plays forward. My sister plays D. Oh, does she? All right. Well, Elite Prospects is wrong then. Okay. Um, so how did you and your sister wind up playing D? Is it just cuz Graham played forward and he wanted somebody to defend him? I think so. No. Um, um, my dad was my coach originally when I was in novice and I played forward and then he was annoyed that like none of the D could get the puck up. So, he said, “You should go do that.” And I said, “All right, fine.” I I was kind of annoyed at the start cuz I was like seven years old. I wanted to score goals, but I don’t know. I worked out and I think it was a good call on his behalf. I feel like you scored plenty of goals. Yeah. So So it worked out well and I’m I’m yeah happy he he kind of overrid that for me. Usually when we talk to a little brother whose older brother also plays, they’re a goalie. How did you escape that younger brother curse? Uh I got lucky. I guess he’s a he’s a shooter, too. So I don’t know. I I’m I got really lucky cuz Yeah. wouldn’t be surprised if going back he ripped a couple off my noggin, but no, I escaped it. And when I was looking at Elite Prospects and I saw the profile for your sister, she was wearing her Lady Senators jersey and I I love that jersey, that Ottawa Senators 93 expansion era jersey. You’ve worn Barry Colts, LA Kings, Ontario Rain. I’m blanking on the name of your Slovakian team. I apologize. What’s the What’s the sharpest jersey you’ve ever worn? Oh, that’s a really good question. Um, I like our our black home jerseys right now. To be honest with you, I think those are that that’s the easy answer. And it’s a iconic logo. So, I’m going to go with that. But those berry jerseys are really nice, too, for a junior team. I think we had one of the top jerseys and top merch, you could say. So, I would definitely shout out to them. But, I like I like our black home ones right now, for sure. Apologies to everybody who heard me say this. When when last summer when we found out about the new logo and the new jerseys, I saw the new logo. I was initially a little iffy about the crown. I’ve come to love it. I think it’s gorgeous. Um, wasn’t sure about the jerseys, but when I actually saw the black home jersey in person when it came out of the box and I actually saw it, there’s something about it, right, that’s just like it looks great in person. I can’t quite put my finger on it. Agreed. I think it pops. I think it looks good just on the ice, too. And I Yeah. So, I think that’s a big big tell. Maybe in Yeah, in the original photos you were just I think that comes with a lot of jerseys though. I feel like I feel like sometimes I’m like I just got to wait to see what this looks on though. Like sometimes you see a jersey reveal and you’re like oh but then you see the on the ice and you’re like oh that actually works well. We’re recording this before the season starts. I’m not 100% sure when it’s going to air. So I’m going to ask you vague questions. You don’t have to give me details. Have you seen any third jerseys that might or might not debut this year for the LA Kings? I have. Okay. Do you like them? I want to ask you I do. I like them a lot. Yeah. Okay. I haven’t seen them yet, but I have a pretty good idea of what they look like. And I’ve seen some supporting stuff, and they sound cool, but they do sound. Yeah. Yeah, they got I don’t know how much more to say. Well, let’s just keep it very very vague, but none of us get in trouble. Uh, no, they’re really they’re really sharp, but I’m looking forward to throwing them on for sure. I’ll say I’ll say that much. So, you’ve I think you’ve you played in Toronto, right, as a kid? I played in Ottawa till I was about like 13 14. And then I then I moved to Toronto for 3 years. For the last three years, minor hockey and then so yeah. So you’ve lived in Toronto, Ottawa, LA now or the South Bay, which I insist on telling people the South Bay is not LA, it’s the South Bay. Um, listen, everybody who lives here understands LA is perfect. The weather’s awesome. There’s a million things to do in LA. But you’ve lived in in Ottawa, Toronto, and I’m blanking on the name of Slovakia. Apologies. Is there one thing that if you could that you would bring from any of those places to LA to make LA more perfect? And you can’t say seasons. Oh, that’s probably what I would have went with. Um, no. I like literally I LA gets well regarded for obviously year round just like it being nice. Like I sometimes I text my dad like like, “Oh, it’s like windy today or it’s like kind of chilly.” and he’s like, “I just shoveled like 6 ft of snow.” And I’m like, “Oh, okay. It’s actually not that bad.” So, so, um, no, I I think it’s great out here for living lifestyle. How you can’t really you can’t beat it. So, I’ve lived here my whole life and I get very excited when people move here and I know that they don’t know the area. I get super excited to tell them about weird little stuff like June Gloom or traffic patterns like that people might just not know about and I’m just like, “Oh, yeah. There’s there’s this weird little thing about LA.” Is there anything like that where you just love telling people little LA secrets you’ve learned? Um, LA secrets. I wouldn’t I don’t know if I there’s the traffic is something you got to adjust to for sure. Especially when there’s those motorcycle guys we make to the I think that’s caught me off guard. Is that only an LA thing? I haven’t seen I haven’t lived anywhere else in the States. I It’s not a can. Not a lot of motorcycle drivers in Ottawa with icy roads and everything. Motorcycle guys. So, shout out to him. We got a couple bikes in our garage, but um my brother rides, too. But, uh no, I I’ve never seen people just weave through and trust other people’s behind the wheel that much. A trusting city. Yeah, exactly. Is there no Is there nothing in contracts that would prohibit your brother from riding a motorcycle? Oh, maybe there is. All right. Oh, all right. I don’t know. I said I try not to get you in trouble. I didn’t say anything about your brother. Yeah, exactly. Um so, let’s talk about this coming season. um last year and I apologize if I’m getting the language wrong, but last year you were partnered with Joel Edmonson a lot and the idea I think as it was presented was that he would be sort of a mentor or or stop gap or you know a compliment to your style of play. Um he wound up playing more minutes and more games last year than he had ever previously in his career, but this year now they brought in Brian Dumlan and Cody Cece. Has there been any conversation with either upper management or the coaching staff about what your role will be, who you’d be likely to be paired with, or is that does that play out over the course of a season with the coaching staff? Um, yeah, there’s there’s been conversations for sure. I think uh I’ve done taken a lot of reps with Dumo just to start the start the camp. And that doesn’t mean we’re we’re going to stick together all season. That doesn’t but it might. You know, he’s been great so far and I’ve really liked uh playing with them. But like I think they just want reps with for all of us to kind of get used to each other. They’re they’re confident. Me and Eddie know each other well. So if they ever have to go back to us, we’re good. And they want me and Dumo to grow grow that kind of um uh you know, communication and whatnot. So I think that’s been going great as well. So I’m lucky that we have such a good uh defense core and so so easy to communicate and everything like that. So yeah, I’m in a good in a good spot and whatever way it plays out, I’ll it’ll work. Brian Dumlin and and Joel Edison do not play the same type of game necessarily. Is there a type of defenseman that you like playing with that you feel accentuates your game better? Um, sorry that sort of gets you in trouble because now I’m asking you to pick one over the other. Um, I don’t know because it’s everything has their like advantages. I don’t want to say disadvantages, but like strengths and like less of areas of focus. Yeah. Yeah. Exactly. So, um I don’t know because I feel like when you have guys that are like them that communicate as well as they do and just like kind of want to work off they, you know, they tell me all the time they want to work off me and just kind of get me up in the rush and stuff like that, it’s uh it mean, you know, it means the world hearing that. So, I don’t know. I think p playing with a puck movers is always great, but you know, playing with someone, you know, someone as physical as Eddie and someone he’s, you know, he’s always got his guy in the D zone and boxes out so well and it makes me really, you know, I’m not really I know who I got, you know what I mean? So, it’s uh that always helps. So, I think there’s there’s differences, but uh I think just, you know, they’re both really strong players and you make it work however way it plays out. When I was a kid, power plays had two defenseman, three forwards, and the strategy was pretty much get the puck to the point. You got one power play quarterback and one guy with a cannon who just bombs shots, and you hope for the best. Over the years, it’s transitioned to one defenseman, four forwards. There’s a lot more puck movement, a lot more creativity. The Kings now are rolling out five forwards on the power play, which means that you and Drew Dowy sort of gone back forward one step on the first unit and back one step on the I don’t mean to say back, but all of a sudden there’s two defenseman on that power play unit. At least that’s what we saw in practice. Um, have you ever played on a power play with two defensemen? No, I would say I guess that just shows I’m a young guy, but uh No, that’s um I wouldn’t say so. I think it’s always I’ve always kind of grown up in the like through junior and everything with the four forwards, one defenseman. I’ve never been on a team either. I mean, except for like the end of last season that has five forwards, but I mean those guys do it so well. It looks incredible when they’re when they’re zipping it around. But, uh, you know, I think where I’m positioned right now, you like you kind of said, it goes Dewy’s got a got a bomb and, you know, I we can move it around. We have a lot of options on our on our unit. So, I think it’s uh works out well and I’m happy with who we got and I’m h I think uh like I said on that first unit, they move it around incredibly well and it’s fun to watch. So, I think we hope they they bear down and if if they don’t and we get out there, we’re going to try to get as many pucks in as possible, bang one in and try to do our thing. We talked to Jim Hiller a little bit about it after practice the other day and I asked him about the two defenseman on the power play. You’re also both right shots, which is neither here nor there, but it’s worth mentioning. and he said, you know, when you when a power play is ending, the guys coming out of the box, so it could be helpful to have two defenseman on the ice, you know, for that to stop any potential offensive things. Do they talk when they break down systems? And I know they do an excellent job of of, you know, talking about what they want to do. Do they get into that sort of thing with you guys or is it more just positioning systems, what they expect or do they talk about the the first 30 seconds after a special teams play ends? They talk about it for sure. I think they’ve almost talked about a little less in terms of that because of now that we have two uh um D on the second unit, but uh because it’s always I don’t know on the bench like when there’s 10 seconds countdown they’re like and there was one D out there. It’s like okay like the next D’s got the next first four like we need to get two of D out there. I mean, you get two of D out there, but now that we already have 2D out there, it’s kind of everyone I know I’m getting him. I know I’m changing for him. So, it’s kind of simplified that, but uh I mean I yeah, I’d say before there was definitely more communication like know who you have like the D got to be ready to jump when the forward comes and just like be ready for the guy coming to the box and everything like that. But, uh I think now it’s me and me and D are you know aware of the clock and everything and so I think it’s gone pretty pretty smoothly. Over the last six, seven years, we there was a lot of talk of like the organization has its own vocabulary. It has its own terms. It has its own systems. They want to make sure that everyone in Ontario understands the same things that everyone in LA does so that there’s ease of, you know, fluidity from players between the two clubs. Is the vocabulary, you don’t have to tell me any vocabulary words, but is it that different from the rest of the hockey world? Like do new people coming into the organization actually have to learn new phrases and make sure that you use them all the time? I’ll give you an example. Okay, so a tick was a phrase that I had never heard before four years ago and it seems to me I could be wrong. Hope I’m not talking out of term, but it seems to me a tick is just a stick check or just getting your stick out on a puck. Yep. So, I’d never heard it called that before, but Tom Mlullen would talk about it all the time and he’d say, you know, it’s good tick here, good tick there, whatever, blah, blah, blah. And if that’s all it means, like for everybody to have their own vocabulary, I was like, “All right, well, you’re saying the same thing. You’re just using a specific word.” Or is it higher level stuff where like you literally have to take home a playbook and study it for a week to know what the heck anybody’s talking about? That’s why I kind of paused it the first time. cuz there’s like there’s terms but like and there’s like we run certain plays and stuff like that and there’s like you know rims and like squeezes where it’s like kind of a little different. Um but I don’t know. I think like Dumo and C’s kind of like in terms of D stuff they figured it out already. So it’s it’s really not that I think once you’re around like the the playing hockey it’s like okay this is just another way of doing this. But yeah it’s it’s been easy enough. along those lines. Um the coach and general manager have changed in your tenure with the club. When there’s that kind of management change, does the mood change? Does the tone change? Like Jim Hiller was here under Todd Mlullen, so it’d be really easy for him to carry on a lot of the traditions that Todd Mlullen established, but Ken Holland’s brand new. And this is a terrible analogy to go back to high school or whatever. But like if you get a new teacher or a new camp counselor or you know whatever like some things will hang over but other things will just be totally different. I mean what percentage of stuff is the same under the new you know new management. I’d say uh I’d say like the mentality is still the same. I think there’s been different talks and I think uh Ken’s kind of broken down more like in a way like when we did our opening meeting like he was breaking down all sorts of like what we have to accomplish this year what we’re doing that. So in terms of that it was he was uh that was a little different but in terms of just our mentality I think we just have such a good leadership core that that’s what as much as much as we want we listen to the coaches and we you know we do what they say and there are differences for sure but I think then you know the prep preparation and the willingness to want to win and you know we have the leaders like Drew and Kopi that have done it before. So I think that’s kind of where where that comes from. We want to all elevate ourselves to that level. So, I think just because we have those guys, I think it’s still there’s still definitely, you know, like a a string that connects it and that’s still kind of the mentality we have. Jim Miller’s made it really clear that he doesn’t talk to the goalies about goalie stuff, right? He leaves it to Mike Buckley. He’s not he’s not going to pretend to know anything about goalending. And he’s made perfectly clear that DJ Smith is in charge of the defense. But he also told us that if a forward asked him to play with a certain other forward, he doesn’t care. He’s going to play the forwards the way he wants to play them. If you went to DJ Smith and asked him, you know, can I play with this guy? Would he be more open to it than Jim Hiller or is that across the board coaching decisions like no, we do what we want to do and figure it out? I think he’d like he’d listen, but I think I I don’t because I’m I’m kind of happy with however he puts it and there’s been no we we always make it work on the back end and we have had such a strong defensive team last year and that’s what’s most important. So, I don’t think I’d ever do that. But sure, but if if that day comes, I I bet you he’d listen. But I don’t think that hasn’t happened and I don’t see it happening in the near future. We heard that Mikey Anderson’s voice has gotten louder in the locker room. Uh, who’s the loudest guy in the locker room right now? In a playful way or a leadership way, Drew. Yeah. Okay. All right. Fair enough. Did you get a chance to meet Cory Perry this summer before he got hurt? Uh, yes. Yes, I’ve talked to him. He’s he’s a great guy. He’s I mean, everyone’s quieter than Drew, but like he’s kind of softspoken guy. He’s but he’s he’s been great and you know it’s unfortunate what happened but we’re we’re looking forward to having him back next month. Kings fans will probably not appreciate me saying this but cuz he’s a villain amongst Kings fans but everything I’ve well yeah right everything I’ve heard about him and my limited exposure to him as a guy makes him seem like possibly the nicest guy on the planet I would say. Yeah. I mean, I it’s he’s just a very soft spoken, you know, nice guy that I’ that’s the only interactions I’ve had with him that we haven’t I mean, I skated with him twice in those like captain skates, but I didn’t haven’t like been around him in like the competitive environment really yet, but uh you know, just sitting eating lunch with him, he’s he’s been he’s been great. So, nothing nothing but good things to say. So, then last question, I’ll let you go. What does a successful season look like for Brandt Clark? Oh, um, no, I just think, you know, taking the next step and, you know, really in, you know, I think I did a good job, you know, in growth last season and learning kind of the league and learning, you know, to shake off, you know, rough like bad breaks or whatever it may be. But I think now is the time I got to, you know, kind of command it myself a little bit more and, you know, kind of make the smooth play and, you know, not be like I don’t want to have the, “Oh, he’s a young guy cop out answer.” Like, I know. I want to kind of be like, “No, I’m I’m here to make plays. I’m here to shut down guys. I’m I feel stronger. I’ve felt stronger throughout camp. I felt stronger throughout preseason games. So, I’m ready to kind of like just, you know, shut it down in the D zone, capitalize when I got chances in the offensive zone, and, you know, just be a be key contributor on a team that, you know, takes that step this year. You know, we haven’t been able to do that the last few seasons, but, you know, I think, you know, being copies last season, we’re all driven extremely to to get it done, and that’s kind of where I’m at, and I I I want to be a key contributor in that, and I think that’s I think I’m on the right path, but there’s more to do, and I’m ready to kind of get that going. Excellent. Well, thank you for your time. Appreciate it, Brandt. I’m gonna call you brand, not best luck. We’ll see you out there at crypto. You should.

Clarkie…Clarkey…B? Whatever you call him, LA Kings defenseman Brandt Clarke joins All the Kings Men podcast with Jesse Cohen to talk Hockey Nicknames, Uniforms, and much more!

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