Anze Kopitar, one of NHL's most underappreciated stars, is retiring after this season

Clayton Kershaw is not the only Los Angeles sports icon announcing their retirement on Thursday. Anze Kopitar, the longtime captain of the Los Angeles Kings and a two-time Stanley Cup champion, also announced on Thursday that he is retiring from the NHL following the 2025-26 season. Kopitar has played his entire career with the Kings after being a first-round pick by the team in 2005, helping bring the Stanley Cup to Los Angeles for the first time ever. 

Anze Kopitar is still one of the NHL's most underappreciated stars

Kopitar was never the most prolific scorer in the NHL during his career, but few players in the league were better at both ends of the ice. Even into his late 30s, Kopitar has consistently been one of the NHL's best two-way players and was consistently overshadowed not only by the league's elite point-producers, but even other comparable two-way centers like Boston's Patrice Bergeron and Chicago's Jonathan Toews. 

But while all three players — Kopitar, Bergeron and Toews — were extremely comparable, the other two seemed to get more recognition as the better players and slam-dunk Hall of Famers. 

Kopitar was not only their equal across the board; he was in many seasons the superior player. He was every bit the defensive force that Bergeron and Toews were, and a consistently better offensive player. Even with all of his individual and team accomplishments he still never seemed to get the recognition he deserved leaguewide. 

Anze Kopitar's Hall of Fame resume

When you look at the overall career numbers, Kopitar doesn't have some of the big numbers that other Hall of Famers do. Entering his final season in the NHL, he has 440 goals and 1,278 total points in 1,454 regular-season games. Excellent numbers — but not exactly among the all-time greats.

Those numbers only tell a portion of the story of his career. Kopitar's resume includes two Selke Trophies as the NHL's best defensive forward, three Lady Byng Awards for gentlemanly play and sportsmanship and two Stanley Cup rings. In both of those Stanley Cup-winning seasons, he was the best player on the Kings roster, leading the playoffs in scoring each time. 

The three-year stretch between 2012 and 2015 was Kopitar at his absolute peak level of dominance. He was not only the best player on a team that won two Stanley Cups and had another Western Conference Final appearance sandwiched in the middle, he also helped drag an overmatched and undermanned Slovenia team to the quarterfinals of the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi, Russia. He was the only NHL player on that team in a tournament against what were basically NHL All-Star squads, and he had that team playing competitive hockey and hanging with them.