{"id":105759,"date":"2025-08-29T16:13:11","date_gmt":"2025-08-29T16:13:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/105759\/"},"modified":"2025-08-29T16:13:11","modified_gmt":"2025-08-29T16:13:11","slug":"morning-notes-kopitar-marner-gallant","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/105759\/","title":{"rendered":"Morning Notes: Kopitar, Marner, Gallant"},"content":{"rendered":"

In a\u00a0recent interview with Jaime Maggio from Sports Central LA<\/a>, An\u017ee Kopitar<\/a>, long-time star of the Los Angeles Kings, suggested that his upcoming 20th season in the NHL might be his last. He will be playing out the final year of a two-year, $14 million contract with the Kings this season.<\/p>\n

The Jesenice, Slovenia native will certainly leave his mark on the franchise if he decides to hang up his skates after the 2025-26 season. He debuted for the Kings during the 2006-07 season and has been a major factor in them winning their only two Stanley Cup championships in franchise history.<\/p>\n

He\u2019s unlikely to pass Luc Robitaille<\/a> as the organizational goal leader, but Kopitar is already the franchise leader in games played and assists. Furthermore, once he scores his 30th point this upcoming season, he\u2019ll become the Kings\u2019 franchise leader in points, passing Marcel Dionne<\/a>. At any rate, Los Angeles would have a huge hole at center heading into the 2026-27 campaign if Kopitar does retire.<\/p>\n

Additional notes from this morning:<\/p>\n

New star forward for the Vegas Golden Knights, Mitch Marner<\/a>, opened up<\/a> on his final days with the Toronto Maple Leafs at Team Canada\u2019s Olympic orientation camp yesterday. Marner admitted that he and his family required full-time security at his residence in Canada for nearly two weeks after the Maple Leafs were eliminated in last year\u2019s playoffs by the Florida Panthers. At the press conference, Marner said, \u201cThe market\u2019s very passionate. They love their team. I know it, I was born and raised there. I\u2019ve been a part of Leafs nation for a long time. But, when your family safety comes into question, especially having a new son, I don\u2019t think it\u2019s acceptable.\u201c
\nDespite being several years removed from his tenure as the head coach of the New York Rangers,\u00a0Gerard Gallant<\/a> wasn\u2019t ready to retire, despite the lack of interest from the NHL, ultimately leading him to take on the role of head coach of the KHL\u2019s Shanghai Dragons. In a new interview with Daria Tuboltseva of RG Media<\/a>, Gallant opened up on the questions he got from his friends and family about the move, saying, \u201c\u2018You are only 61 years old, and you want to coach again?\u2019 It was the best opportunity, and I said, \u2018I will give it a try.\u2019 I wanted to try it, it was something new, and it was going to be tough. But I said, \u2018I want to try, I want to keep coaching.\u2019 I still do not feel like I am ready to retire.\u201c<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"In a\u00a0recent interview with Jaime Maggio from Sports Central LA, An\u017ee Kopitar, long-time star of the Los Angeles…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":105760,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[433],"tags":[47998,49,48,8029,8030,763,8436,448,82,767],"class_list":["post-105759","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nhl","tag-anze-kopitar","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-gerard-gallant","tag-khl","tag-los-angeles-kings","tag-mitch-marner","tag-nhl","tag-sports","tag-vegas-golden-knights"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/105759","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=105759"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/105759\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/105760"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=105759"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=105759"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=105759"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}