Kopitar determined to make playoffs as Kings set bad record in chaotic loss
Alex Hutton
Host · Writer
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’ 75th game, a record-breaking 5-4 shootout loss to the Nashville Predators, he made it clear he’s determined to make sure that doesn’t come to fruition.
“I don’t plan on just playing seven more games,” he said.
The game itself was one of the Kings’ wildest all season. After opening with a ceremony to honor Kopitar’s 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’t even include the disallowed goal they had just 18 seconds in, nor the missed penalty shot after Darcy Kuemper’s reckless attempt to stop a breakaway, nor the double-minor high-sticking penalty on Brandt Clarke which was overturned on review.
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.
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.
“After a slow start, I think we played pretty good, and I’m proud of the team, how we battled back in the game,” said forward Joel Armia, who took the eighth and final shootout miss. “It just sucks. Sucks to lose that one.”
Once again, the Kings are hanging just on the edge of playoff contention — not quite in a postseason spot, but not nearly far enough out for the season to be over.
“It’s [a playoff] type of mentality from here on out, if we want to get to the playoffs,” Kopitar said. “So it’s 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.”
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.
“I think he’s just willing himself right now,” head coach D.J. Smith said of the Kings’ captain.” I think when this is all said and done, he’ll probably take a good six weeks and be exhausted, but he’s pushing himself down the stretch. He’s been one of our best players every night.”
That push is what the entire Kings team knows they need every night — not for half the game like in this one, but for the full contest.
“Once we got it to 4-4, we didn’t give them anything,” Smith said. “We gotta start the game like that.”
“Obviously you want to get the two points. We didn’t get them,” Kopitar added. “We’ll take the one. Certainly not the start that we wanted. But the fight, the character that this group showed, obviously it’s encouraging. And we’re going to need that kind of fight going forward.”
