Anze Kopitar honored after Kings beat nemesis Oilers in home finale
When the final horn sounded Saturday in the Kings’ 1-0 win over the Edmonton Oilers, Anze Kopitar walked to center ice, microphone in hand and heart in pieces.
“Thank you very much,” he told fans, his voice breaking. “Thank you for being here.”
Kopitar then held his hands in front of him and folded his fingers into a heart shape before walking away – not quite towards the sunset, but headed in that direction.
Kopitar announced in September that this season would be his last, so unless the Kings make the playoffs — a distinct possibility after the team’s fourth straight win and fifth in six games, its best streak of the season — Saturday marked the final home appearance of a stellar 20-year career spent entirely in Los Angeles.
Anze Kopitar of the Kings fights for position in front of Darnell Nurse of the Oilers during the second period Saturday at Crypto.com Arena.
(Scott Strazzante/For Time)
And the announced crowd of 18,145 at Crypto.com Arena made sure he knew parting was such sweet heartbreak, standing and cheering long after the match ended.
“Eventually it was going to happen,” Kopitar, 38, thought before the match. “Whether it was this year or two years from now, there would be one last day. And I completely agree with my decision.”
Kopitar will leave having written his name all over the Kings record books. He is the franchise’s all-time leader in points (1,314), assists (862), game-winning goals (79) and games played (1,518). He ranks third in goals (452) and power play goals (129).
And more importantly, he played a starring role in the Kings’ only two Stanley Cup championships, leading the 2011-12 and 2013-14 teams in goals, assists and points.
“Over 700 people have put on a Kings uniform,” said Daryl Evans, who was one of 700 before retiring to become a broadcaster with the team. “He stands on top of the mountain as one of the greatest, if not THE the greatest – to do it. He’s a great hockey player, as we can all see. But he’s a better person off the ice.
It’s that second part, Evans said, that will make Kopitar difficult to replace.
“Records are made to be broken. But the intangible things, the things he did as captain of the team, the leadership he provided, the type of player he was, was very selfless,” Evans said. “He’s one of those guys who is a special player.”
The Kings scored the only goal they would need Saturday, at 7:34 of the first period, when Artemi Panarin stripped the puck from Edmonton’s Evan Bouchard at the Kings blue line and took off the other way, skating alone on Oilers goaltender Connor Ingram, then beating him on a wrist shot between the circles.
Kings players react as Anze Kopitar addresses fans after his final home game of the regular season, a 1-0 win over the Edmonton Oilers on Saturday.
(Scott Strazzante/For Time)
The goal was Panarin’s ninth in 23 games since joining the Kings just before the Olympic break. Edmonton nearly pulled back midway through the period when Curtis Lazar tipped the puck past Kings goaltender Anton Forsberg, only for defenseman Cody Ceci to dive through the slot and take it away with a desperate one-handed swing of his stick.
Forsberg was brilliant until the end, stopping 27 shots to score his 11th career shutout and won his season-best fourth straight game, preserving the Kings’ one-point lead over Nashville in the race for the final Western Conference playoff spot.
The son of a coach, Kopitar was born in the former Yugoslavia, in the mining town of Jesenice near the border with Austria, a region that became part of Slovenia when that country declared independence just before Kopitar’s fourth birthday.
At 16, he led the new country’s top-tier professional league in scoring. So he moved to Sweden looking for a challenge – and led this country best junior league with 49 points in 30 games. This caught the attention of the Kings, who selected Kopitar 11th overall in the 2005 draft.
Fourteen months later, he became the first Slovenian to play in the NHL, making his debut as a teenager and scoring two goals against the Ducks. He never looked back – or looked to play elsewhere, twice signing contract extensions with the Kings rather than testing the free agent market. (Not that he needed to test the free agent market since he made more than $140 million during his two decades with the Kings, becoming the highest-paid player in team history.)
“I’ve always felt extremely comfortable in Los Angeles,” said Kopitar, whose two children were born here. “The organization has been world-class since I got here, so I had no desire to go anywhere else.”
Anze Kopitar celebrates with the Stanley Cup after the Kings’ victory over the New Jersey Devils in 2012.
(Robert Gauthier/Los Angeles Times)
As a result, only six players in league history have played more games with a single organization, making Kopitar’s name synonymous with the franchise.
“The best to play for the Kings,” said Luc Robitaille, the franchise’s leader in goals (557) as a player and now team president. “What he meant to this franchise – you know, this franchise never won and he came in and we won two.” [Stanley Cups]. So he deserves all the credits and everything that happens to him.
He’s also one of the last of a dying breed: a two-way center who was a standout on both ends of the ice, but was also gracious enough to win the Lady Byng Trophy three times. Only one player has won the NHL Sportsmanship Award more times this century.
“Every coach would love to have him because he never cheats,” Evans said of Kopitar, who was also nominated this month for the Bill Masterton Memorial Trophy, which recognizes the player who “best exemplifies the qualities of perseverance, sportsmanship and dedication to the game of ice hockey.”
“He’s very proud and he doesn’t want to let his teammates down,” Evans said. “He’s been studying the game since Day 1. He plays the game the right way. If you could tell a player to ‘watch someone,’ there’s a guy you want to watch.”
Kopitar’s numbers have declined this season, in part due to two lower-body injuries that caused him to miss significant time in October and January. This allows him to finish with fewer than 16 goals in a full season for only the third time, while his 24 assists and 36 points are career lows.
But he has the team’s best plus/minus numbers and has won a career-high 57.7 percent of his faceoffs, including four crucial draws in the Kings’ zone in the final minute on Saturday.
“It’s obviously been an up and down season,” he said. “Some good, some bad, some ugly.”
Kopitar admits that the goodbyes were emotional at times. During his last visit to Madison Square Garden last month, for example, he and former teammate Jonathan Quick exchanged several hugs after the match.
“I appreciate it,” he added. “I’m not sad about it. I guess I just stay in the moment and enjoy the moment.”
Anze Kopitar of the Kings attempts to blast a shot past Edmonton goaltender Connor Ingram on Saturday at Crypto.com Arena.
(Scott Strazzante/For Time)
The Kings can extend Kopitar’s farewell tour by at least a few weeks by making the playoffs, a task that seems much more likely than it did a week ago. After Saturday’s win, the Kings not only lead Nashville in the wild-card race with a game in hand against the Predators, but they are just two points out of third place in the Pacific Division standings.
“He’s hoping he plays here again,” Kings coach DJ Smith said of Kopitar’s possible playoff recall.
Where and when the team could open the playoffs — if, indeed, they qualify — is up in the air since the Kings could finish anywhere from first to fifth in the division, leaving them with more than a dozen possible playoff scenarios. So when the team leaves for its final three-game road trip of the season on Sunday, players have been asked to pack their bags for 10 days.
Regardless, Kopitar does not change his mind; When the Kings’ season ends — whenever it does — his career will end, too. So will his time in Los Angeles as Kopitar sells his Manhattan Beach home and returns to Slovenia to accept a new role as a full-time father.
“I’m going to be a dad,” he said. “I’m just going to relax and see how long it takes to get bored and then we’ll figure it out from there. Of course, I’m going to miss this place. But it was obviously a family decision to move.
“Even though this place is super nice and the community has been great to us, it’s time to slow down a little and enjoy life. But I’ll definitely come back here.”
