{"id":641472,"date":"2026-08-12T11:34:12","date_gmt":"2026-08-12T11:34:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/641472\/"},"modified":"2026-08-12T11:34:12","modified_gmt":"2026-08-12T11:34:12","slug":"forever-an-la-king-anze-kopitars-legacy-will-go-to-the-rafters","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/641472\/","title":{"rendered":"Forever an LA King: An\u017ee Kopitar&#8217;s Legacy Will Go to the Rafters"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>For 20 years, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nhl.com\/player\/anze-kopitar-8471685\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">An\u017ee Kopitar<\/a> was a mainstay and an <a href=\"https:\/\/hockeyroyalty.com\/page\/2\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">LA Kings<\/a> icon. Now, his decorated career will forever be remembered in Kings history.<\/p>\n<p>Last week, the Kings announced that Kopitar\u2019s number 11 jersey will be retired and that a statue of him will be unveiled outside Crypto.com Arena on Wednesday, February 24th, for the upcoming season. Kopitar will be the eighth Kings player to have their jersey number retired and the fourth to have a statue built for him.<\/p>\n<p dir=\"ltr\" lang=\"en\">Forever our 1\ufe0f\u20e3 of 1\ufe0f\u20e3.<\/p>\n<p>\ud83d\udda4 <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/NeNzq6FDYw\" rel=\"nofollow\">pic.twitter.com\/NeNzq6FDYw<\/a><\/p>\n<p>\u2014 LA Kings (@LAKings) <a href=\"https:\/\/x.com\/LAKings\/status\/2085773547180568993?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" rel=\"nofollow\">August 7, 2026<\/a><\/p>\n<p>Here is where Kopitar ranks in the record books in franchise history along with his accolades:<\/p>\n<p>1,521 games (1st)<br \/>\n452 goals (3rd)<br \/>\n864 assists (1st)<br \/>\n1,316 points (1st)<br \/>\n127 power-play goals (3rd)<br \/>\n14 short-handed goals (5th)<br \/>\n79 game-winning goals (1st)<br \/>\n7 hat tricks (6th)<br \/>\n107 playoff games (1st)<br \/>\n27 playoff goals (3rd)<br \/>\n62 playoff assists (2nd)<br \/>\n89 playoff points (T-2nd)<br \/>\n7 power-play goals (T-4th)<br \/>\n2 short-handed goals (T-1st)<br \/>\n1x Mark Messier Leadership Award<br \/>\n2x Selke Trophy winner<br \/>\n2x Stanley Cup champion<br \/>\n3x Lady Byng winner<br \/>\n5x all-star<\/p>\n<p>No doubt that is a resume of a future first-ballot Hall of Famer. If we go back to July 30th, 2005, knowing what we know now, there is a good chance the Kings wouldn\u2019t select Kopitar with the 11th overall pick in a redo.<\/p>\n<p>In an interview with Dave Taylor back in April, he stated that he and the rest of his front office staff had Kopitar ranked third on their draft board behind forward Sidney Crosby and defenseman Jack Johnson. In fact, the Kings considered trading up, but opted to stay put at 11 after talks with Al Murray (Director of Amateur Scouting) and Grant Sonier (Assistant Amateur Scouting Director), believing Kopitar would be available at number 11.<\/p>\n<p>The decision paid off, and the Kings went with the risk of drafting a 17-year-old center from a non-hockey country, Slovenia, that the teams from picks four through ten decided not to do. I firmly believe that being from Slovenia caused Kopitar to fall out of the top 10 in the draft, and if scouts and front offices had a crystal ball in front of them, he would have been selected in the top five.<\/p>\n<p>From Slovenia to Los Angeles to etched in Kings lore. Congrats, Kopi!<\/p>\n<p>Featured image credit: Gary A. Vasquez\/NHLI via Getty Images<\/p>\n<p>\t\tContinue Reading<\/p>\n<p>\t                    <script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"For 20 years, An\u017ee Kopitar was a mainstay and an LA Kings icon. Now, his decorated career will&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":532758,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5126],"tags":[367,5,26905,186,1760,240,5303,793,145,5304,5302,4,69779],"class_list":["post-641472","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-los-angeles-kings","tag-anze-kopitar","tag-hockey","tag-jersey-retirement","tag-kings","tag-la","tag-la-kings","tag-lakings","tag-los-angeles","tag-los-angeles-kings","tag-losangeles","tag-losangeleskings","tag-nhl","tag-statue"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nhl\/117082329140225508","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/641472","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=641472"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/641472\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/532758"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=641472"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=641472"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=641472"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}