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Today’s scandalous topic: what do you want for Dustin Brown?

I know I’ve been critical of Dustin Brown. Let me just clarify that I think DB is a great player with a great contract, and he’s someone who I think is ideally suited to being a team’s third or fourth fiddle, not the team leader or the marquee star, but the affable fan favorite with the peerless work ethic, pumpkin grin and, when removed just slightly from the limelight, a reliable and sometimes highlight-reel goal-scorer. Not to mention the bone-crushing body-checks and the community service. Also, when my eight-year-old learned that Brown could be traded, he cried himself to sleep, but not before coming into my room about ten times with alternate trade candidates (my favorite being, Kevin Westgarth and Scott Parse for Patrick Marleau — whom he calls Marloo because “he’s French”). He also would like to trade from the man he used to call “Umberto La Gwango”, but that’s another post.

Forget for a few minutes whether anything I say about Brown is correct or utter bullshit. The question for this post is, if Dustin Brown were to be traded in the next three days, what would you want the return to be?

Here are the teams with “high levels of interest” in Dustin Brown | ProHockeyTalk

This morning on Twitter, TSN’s Bob McKenzie shared the teams that are supposedly interested in acquiring the services of Dustin Brown, the Kings’ captain who’s all of a sudden available prior to Monday’s trade deadline.

[the tweet names BOS, BUF, NYR, NJD, TOR, EDM, PHI and VAN.]

It’s an interesting mix of contenders, up-and-comers, and Buffalo. Given all Brown brings to the table – toughness, goal-scoring and a manageable cap hit – he makes sense for all of those teams to pursue. The question is, what does Kings GM Dean Lombardi want in return? Via Pierre LeBrun: One source told ESPN.com that the Kings would like to get defenseman Luke Schenn and highly touted forward prospect Matt Frattin from the Leafs in a Brown deal.

My sense is that Toronto would find that price too rich, but GM Brian Burke — who had Brown on Team USA in 2010 — really loves Brown.

So, putting all our feelings about Brown aside (and I, at this point, would like to see what happens with Jeff Carter added to the top-six with Kopitar, Brown, Williams, Richards…and King? Nolan?), what would you want in return from those teams?

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