Kopitar steps up in 1,500th game as Kings beat Islanders
· Yahoo Sports
During Anze Kopitar’s 1,500th game, the Los Angeles Kings played a message on the Crypto.com Arena videoboard in which team play-by-play announcer Josh Schaefer declared a simple statement: “Anze Kopitar is one of one.”
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As Kopitar, who is in his final season, is the only Slovenian player ever with a substantial NHL career, it’s an accurate assessment. As Kopitar became the only King to reach 1,500 games with the franchise, he added another unique dimension to his story.
“I’m very honored to be a part of this team, this organization, for this long,” he said. “And obviously we had some thin years and some winning years. So it’s been good so far. And I’m looking forward, obviously, to playing out in these 22, 20, whatever games we got left and see where that takes us.”
During the Kings’ 5-3 win over the New York Islanders on Thursday night, “one” proved to be a crucial number for Kopitar — namely the one crucial puck battle he won in the first period, leading to the one great pass he made to set up Artemi Panarin’s first goal as a King, and the one screen he set on Mikey Anderson’s second-period goal. Though he finished with just one point, the Kings felt his impact up and down the ice.
“I think a lot of credit goes, obviously, to Kopi — 1,500 games and just how hard he played defensively,” Kings head coach D.J. Smith said. “We’re not [even] talking about the offensive stuff.”
Kopitar has over 1,300 career points, but a huge part of his value has always been in the ways he affects the game that don’t show up in the box score, from his defense to his intelligence. Having spent recent games playing alongside the Kings’ two best goal-scorers in Panarin and Adrian Kempe, that job becomes even more important.
“Being on the line with Artemi and Adrian, now my role has slightly changed, and you got to get to the net a little bit more and try to use the frame to set some picks, set some screens,” Kopitar said. “And I was able to do that tonight.”
At the same time, having been part of the franchise for 20 years, his contributions go beyond the game and into a leadership role. Now in his 10th season as Kings captain, he has learned how to create the tone for the rest of the team and set an example for his teammates to follow.
“I think one thing I learned about Kopi is when he comes to the rink, especially if we’re losing and not playing good, he doesn’t really want to talk about hockey,” Smith said. “He wants to get his mind off it and get right. He’ll go in there and tell some stories, tell some jokes and things like that, and I think that helps some of the guys — just sometimes when you’re down — not to think so much about the game, but tonight, he was dialed right in.”
“You think about yourself, how you’re getting older, and you’re not even halfway to 1,500,” added Kempe, who’s played 691 career games. “So it’s pretty crazy how many games he’s played and how consistent and how good he’s been throughout these 20 years. I’m really happy and excited for him and really happy to be part of this, and hopefully we can make something good out of these last [21] games.”
Of course, Kopitar and the rest of the Kings would much prefer to end his career with a postseason appearance, and they have work to do to reach it. They sit three points out of a spot with 21 regular-season games remaining. After an up-and-down campaign so far, including a new head coach, they’ll need focus and effort to reach the playoffs for — keeping with the theme of the night — the 11th and final time in Kopitar’s career.
“Every time you have a coaching change, you got to look yourself in the mirror too,” Kopitar said. “We haven’t been performing up to our standards, and we have 20-plus games to salvage the season and squeak into the playoffs. It’s all or nothing now, and we got to play with desperation, and I think we’ve been showing that on [the] ice.”