Anze Kopitar could be in the final seven games of his career. When that possibility was brought up to him after the Los Angeles Kings\u2019 75th game, a record-breaking 5-4 shootout loss to the Nashville Predators, he made it clear he\u2019s determined to make sure that doesn\u2019t come to fruition.<\/p>\n
\u201cI don\u2019t plan on just playing seven more games,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
The game itself was one of the Kings\u2019 wildest all season. After opening with a ceremony to honor Kopitar\u2019s career and his recent breaking of the franchise scoring record, the Predators scored 52 seconds into the game and twice in the first four minutes. That doesn\u2019t even include the disallowed goal they had just 18 seconds in, nor the missed penalty shot after Darcy Kuemper\u2019s reckless attempt to stop a breakaway, nor the double-minor high-sticking penalty on Brandt Clarke which was overturned on review.<\/p>\n
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Despite trailing 4-1 and being outplayed halfway through the game, the Kings managed to flip the game and stormed back to tie it. Of course, all of that was just a setup for an eight-round shootout with just a single goal scored.<\/p>\n
But when all of that chaos settled, the Kings found themselves in a brutally familiar place, collecting their NHL-record 19th overtime or shootout loss.<\/p>\n
\u201cAfter a slow start, I think we played pretty good, and I\u2019m proud of the team, how we battled back in the game,\u201d said forward Joel Armia, who took the eighth and final shootout miss. \u201cIt just sucks. Sucks to lose that one.\u201d<\/p>\n
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Once again, the Kings are hanging just on the edge of playoff contention \u2014 not quite in a postseason spot, but not nearly far enough out for the season to be over.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s [a playoff] type of mentality from here on out, if we want to get to the playoffs,\u201d Kopitar said. \u201cSo it\u2019s obviously a lot of intensity, a lot of desperation. And we just got to do it right from the drop of the puck and right until the very end.\u201d<\/p>\n
Throughout his whole career, Kopitar has been a leader by example, constantly making the right play and setting a standard for his teammates to follow. Over these next seven games, that leadership style becomes even more important.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think he\u2019s just willing himself right now,\u201d head coach D.J. Smith said of the Kings\u2019 captain.\u201d I think when this is all said and done, he\u2019ll probably take a good six weeks and be exhausted, but he\u2019s pushing himself down the stretch. He\u2019s been one of our best players every night.\u201d<\/p>\n
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That push is what the entire Kings team knows they need every night \u2014 not for half the game like in this one, but for the full contest.<\/p>\n
\u201cOnce we got it to 4-4, we didn\u2019t give them anything,\u201d Smith said. \u201cWe gotta start the game like that.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cObviously you want to get the two points. We didn\u2019t get them,\u201d Kopitar added. \u201cWe\u2019ll take the one. Certainly not the start that we wanted. But the fight, the character that this group showed, obviously it\u2019s encouraging. And we\u2019re going to need that kind of fight going forward.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Anze Kopitar could be in the final seven games of his career. When that possibility was brought up…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":538324,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5126],"tags":[367,884,368,5,973,186,1760,240,5303,793,145,5304,5302,231,4,40712,881],"class_list":{"0":"post-538323","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-los-angeles-kings","8":"tag-anze-kopitar","9":"tag-brandt-clarke","10":"tag-darcy-kuemper","11":"tag-hockey","12":"tag-joel-armia","13":"tag-kings","14":"tag-la","15":"tag-la-kings","16":"tag-lakings","17":"tag-los-angeles","18":"tag-los-angeles-kings","19":"tag-losangeles","20":"tag-losangeleskings","21":"tag-nashville-predators","22":"tag-nhl","23":"tag-shootout-loss","24":"tag-the-kings"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nhl\/116340496650140887","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/538323","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=538323"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/538323\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/538324"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=538323"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=538323"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=538323"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}