09/18/25 06:58:00
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09/18 18:56 CDT LA Kings captain Anze Kopitar says he will retire after his
upcoming 20th season
LA Kings captain Anze Kopitar says he will retire after his upcoming 20th season
By GREG BEACHAM
AP Sports Writer
EL SEGUNDO, Calif. (AP) --- Kings captain Anze Kopitar says he will retire
after the upcoming season, ending a 20-year NHL career spent entirely in Los
Angeles.
The 38-year-old Kopitar made the announcement Thursday at a news conference
with his family following the first practice of training camp.
"My mind is made up," Kopitar said. "It was a hard decision, and I will put
100% of my energy into this season. I know I'm going to give it all and leave
the game with a positive mindset."
The Slovenian center has spent his entire hockey career and adult life with the
Kings since his NHL debut as a teenager in October 2006. He is a five-time NHL
All-Star, a two-time winner of the Selke Trophy as the NHL's best defensive
forward and a three-time winner of the Lady Byng Trophy for sportsmanlike play.
Most prominently, he was a star power forward on both of the Kings' only
Stanley Cup-winning teams in 2012 and 2014. He is the second-leading scorer in
franchise history, and he expressed pride at being able to accomplish the rare
feat of playing an entire lengthy career with one team.
"For me, I always looked at LA as my team, as my home," Kopitar said. "We
always felt extremely comfortable here, so it didn't really cross my mind to
even think or explore to go anywhere else. Obviously the fact that we were the
first team to bring the Cup to LA, it makes it special, and then to follow it
up with another one, those are the core memories that you can't just ignore,
even sometimes when times were a little bit rough and we didn't have a very
competitive team.
"Those memories, and the guys around you that have won with you before, those
are the reasons that I didn't think about going anywhere else."
Kopitar is still playing at an elite level after recording 21 goals and 46
assists last season, but he said he wants to have more time with his wife and
soon-to-be-teenage children. He also plans to move his family back to Slovenia.
"We have a figure skater and a hockey player on our hands, so I want to be
present for them, to be at their competitions and their games," he said.
Kopitar's 1,278 career points are 40th in NHL history, and he is just 29 points
behind Marcel Dionne, the leading scorer in Kings history. He is the Kings'
franchise leader in games played with 1,454, and he was their leading scorer in
15 of his first 19 seasons.
Kopitar has been Los Angeles' captain since 2016, and he even tried to put the
team first in making his retirement declaration.
"Why announce now? I guess a simple way to put it is I want to get this out of
the way now to where I'm not a distraction for the team," Kopitar said. "For
example, if we're in a (playoff) fight coming down the stretch, the last thing
I want to do is take any attention away from the team and put it on myself. I
just felt this is the best time. But in saying that, I am looking extremely
forward to this next season. I still have a lot of motivation. I've got a lot
of energy, a lot of desire to compete at the very highest level, and the moves
that we've made, I think we're a better team than we were last year, and I just
cannot wait to get going."
New general manager Ken Holland has made several additions to a roster that
will return most of the core from the team that tied two franchise records last
season with 48 wins and 105 points. The Kings have made the playoffs in four
consecutive seasons, but lost to Edmonton in the first round each time.
Kopitar made his announcement a few hours after the Los Angeles Dodgers
announced that left-hander Clayton Kershaw also will end his lengthy career
this season. Kershaw joined the Dodgers in 2008, two years after Kopitar
arrived in LA.
"Must have been something in the universe for us to decide to do it on the same
day," a laughing Kopitar said of his friend.
___
AP NHL: https://apnews.com/NHL
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