{"id":153744,"date":"2025-09-19T00:29:06","date_gmt":"2025-09-19T00:29:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/153744\/"},"modified":"2025-09-19T00:29:06","modified_gmt":"2025-09-19T00:29:06","slug":"kings-anze-kopitar-announces-plans-to-retire-after-2025-2026-season","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/153744\/","title":{"rendered":"Kings\u2019 Anze Kopitar announces plans to retire after 2025-2026 season"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg\"><a class=\"text-secondary underline underline-offset-2\" hreflang=\"en\" href=\"https:\/\/www.dailyfaceoff.com\/teams\/los-angeles-kings\/line-combinations\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Los Angeles Kings<\/a> veteran center Anze Kopitar announced at a press conference held by the team on Thursday that <a class=\"text-secondary underline underline-offset-2\" href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/live\/boKYxQEGc64\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer nofollow\" hreflang=\"en\">he plans to retire <\/a>following the 2025-2026 NHL season. <\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg\">Kopitar, the club\u2019s current captain, is one of the most legendary players in the franchise\u2019s storied history. <\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg\">The franchise chose him with the No. 11 overall pick in the first round of the 2005 NHL draft, and the Slovenian center quickly became a star in the league. <\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg\">In his rookie year in 2006-2007, he put up 61 points in 72 games played while finishing fourth place in Calder Trophy voting as the league\u2019s top rookie.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg\">He is a three-time recipient of the Lady Byng Memorial Trophy as the player who meets the highest standards of sportsmanship and gentlemanly conduct. He is a two-time winner of the Frank J. Selke Trophy as the league\u2019s top two-way forward, and in 2021-2022, he received the Mark Messier Leadership Award.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg\">Kopitar was one of the driving forces behind the team\u2019s Stanley Cup championship runs in 2012 and 2014, serving as the first-line center on both rosters and producing exactly a point per game on both runs. <\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg\">\u201cI want to get this out of the way now to where I\u2019m not a distraction for the team,\u201d Kopitar said. \u201cFor example, if we\u2019re in a fight coming down the stretch the last thing I want to do is take attention away from the team and put it on myself\u2026 I am looking extremely forward to this next season. I still have a lot of motivation\u2026 to compete at the very highest level.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg\">Kopitar turned 38 in August, and he has maintained his lofty standards of play into his late 30s. He\u2019s coming off a season that saw him score 21 goals and dish out 46 assists for 67 points en route to an eighth-place finish in Selke voting, and he eclipsed the 70-point mark in each of the prior two seasons.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg\">Los Angeles will kick off its regular season schedule at home against the <a class=\"text-secondary underline underline-offset-2\" hreflang=\"en\" href=\"https:\/\/www.dailyfaceoff.com\/teams\/colorado-avalanche\/line-combinations\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Colorado Avalanche<\/a> on October 7 to begin what will surely be a thorough celebration of Kopitar\u2019s career. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Los Angeles Kings veteran center Anze Kopitar announced at a press conference held by the team on Thursday&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":153745,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[433],"tags":[49,48,448,82],"class_list":["post-153744","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nhl","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-nhl","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/153744","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=153744"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/153744\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/153745"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=153744"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=153744"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=153744"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}