{"id":627483,"date":"2026-04-25T09:57:08","date_gmt":"2026-04-25T09:57:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/627483\/"},"modified":"2026-04-25T09:57:08","modified_gmt":"2026-04-25T09:57:08","slug":"kings-hope-to-keep-season-kopitars-career-going-in-game-4-vs-avalanche","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/627483\/","title":{"rendered":"Kings hope to keep season, Kopitar\u2019s career going in Game 4 vs. Avalanche\u00a0"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>LOS ANGELES &#8212; It can\u2019t end yet, not this way, not this early.<\/p>\n<p>The Los Angeles Kings aren\u2019t ready for an early exit in the Stanley Cup Playoffs. They want to keep it going for each other, for their organization, for their fans. But most of all they want to keep it going for <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nhl.com\/player\/anze-kopitar-8471685\" title=\"Anze Kopitar\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Anze Kopitar<\/a>, their captain, the backbone of the Kings for two decades who\u2019s retiring after the playoffs.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThis whole season we\u2019ve been cherishing every moment. We\u2019re not ready to let that go,\u201d Kings defenseman <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nhl.com\/player\/brandt-clarke-8482730\" title=\"Brandt Clarke\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Brandt Clarke<\/a> said. \u201cWe want him around, we want him in this locker room, we want him to be our leader for this whole run. So, we\u2019re still pushing as hard as we can, he\u2019s pushing as hard as he can.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The Kings will have to push more than they have at any point in this best-of-7 series when they face the Colorado Avalanche and elimination in Game 4 of the Western Conference First Round at Crypto.com Arena on Sunday (4:30 p.m. ET; HBO MAX, FDSNSC, truTV, TNT, ALT, TVAS2, SNP, SNW, SN360).<\/p>\n<p>The captain of the Kings since 2016, Kopitar helped lead them to Stanley Cup championships in 2012 and 2014. He won the Selke Trophy, awarded annually to the League\u2019s top defensive forward, in 2015-16 and 2017-18.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>He has 1,316 points (452 goals, 864 assists) in 1,521 career games, all with the Kings, who selected him with the No. 11 pick in the 2005 NHL Draft. He became Los Angeles&#8217; all-time scoring leader on March 14, when he passed <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nhl.com\/player\/marcel-dionne-8446430\" title=\"Marcel Dionne\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Marcel Dionne<\/a>\u00a0(1,307 points; 550 goals, 757 assists in 921 games).\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>The 38-year-old also has 89 points (27 goals, 62 assists) in 106 career playoff games. He has zero points in three games against the Avalanche this postseason and is averaging 19:14 of ice time per game.<\/p>\n<p>Kopitar announced in September that he would retire from the NHL after the season, his 20th in the League. He was audibly and visibly emotional after the Kings\u2019 final regular-season game on April 11, when he thanked the team and fans for their support throughout his career following a 1-0 win against the Edmonton Oilers.<\/p>\n<p>Throughout the regular season, opposing teams honored him when he was in their arenas, be it with video tributes, ovations, opposing players shaking his hand or all of the above.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cYeah, it\u2019s nice. I mean, it\u2019s been going on a little bit now. It\u2019s very nice obviously and it\u2019s a very humbling feeling that every team has obviously decided to do that,\u201d Kopitar said on April 16, when the Calgary Flames honored him after their 3-1 win against the Kings at Scotiabank Saddledome. \u201cIt\u2019s great but on the other side, I\u2019m happy that it\u2019s playoff time now and we can just put this aside and go and compete.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"LOS ANGELES &#8212; It can\u2019t end yet, not this way, not this early. The Los Angeles Kings aren\u2019t&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":627484,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[433],"tags":[49,48,448,82],"class_list":["post-627483","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\/627483","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=627483"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/627483\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/627484"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=627483"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=627483"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=627483"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}