Kopitar’s Declining Production: A Shift in His Role with the Kings

Has the Los Angeles Kings captain, Anze Kopitar, finally slowed down? After 19 seasons, 1,429 regular-season games, 97 playoff games, and 51 games on the Slovenian national team, the guy has to have less tread on the tires. So, he’s actually human?

The future Hall of Famer registered 43 points (12g, 31a) and a +19 in the first 46 games of the season. In the last ten? Three points (1g, 2a) and a -9. During this time, Quinton Byfield, the heir apparent to Kopitar, has taken the vast majority of matchups or has been the go-to offensive driver. The young centerman is knocking on the door, it’s quite evident. Even in December, towards the end of the seven-game road trip, Byfield started being the ace in the sleeve and the workhorse for this defensive scheme.

Byfield was the key driver in the first matchup against the daunted Edmonton Oilers, leaving his fingerprints all over that game at home (three points, the GWG in a 4-3 OT game). On the road against the Oilers? Silence, as it was a 1-0 game that was sequenced off a four-on-four goal with the two superstars out together.

Where was Kopitar in these contests? Despite forty minutes of total game played, Kopitar was absent on the scoresheet. He was, to be fair, even on the plus minus: meaning he can still compete at a high level, just not maintaining the production.

Byfield was becoming the go-to shutdown player, and the team’s offense dried up in a hurry, as in the top six drying out. There needed to be a change. The Kings would reformulate the Phillip Danault line with a stellar off-season addition in Warren Foegele to become a true shutdown line. They would also pair Byfield with Fiala to start piling up points.

Shouldn’t either scenario have left a wide area of room for Kopitar and the top line to operate with impunity on lesser matchups? Point the finger at Alex Turcotte all you want, he’s still playing next to a bonafide superstar in Adrian Kempe. If anything, Kopitar has finally regressed. He’s finally showing his age.

If Kopitar has started regressing into a checking role centerman, that’s fine if Byfield is allowed to get the talent on the wing. Two games ago, Jim Hiller threw out Fiala and Kempe as Byfield’s wings, which might just be a glimpse into a 1C future. Via NST, the three at even strength produced a 68.42% Corsi and 69.23% Fenwick. They outscored the opposition 1-0 and outchanced them 6-3. Foegele would get the all-important game-tying goal, but this line has been the go-to line of late to get the Kings back into the game (Vancouver) or at least in a position to break the back of the opposition (Vegas).

The situation leaves very little for Kopitar as the team’s legacy 1C. Does Hiller want to continue to leave Kempe, the team’s best winger, on a line that is not producing over a stretch of games getting into double digits? The production and impact the 22-55-9 line are having is undeniable, as Hiller has pointed out even in his postgame presser following the overtime loss to Vancouver:

– Hiller, postgame 2/26/25 against Vancouver

That’s two games in a row Hiller have discussed during postgame the need to discuss the new combination with his staff, as the sample size is growing from its tiny infancy to something that’s becoming more sustainable. Call it a hunch, but I guess this might be something more overarching, as if it might need to get cleared by number 11, taking a backseat to another center for the first time in almost two decades.

That’s pure speculation, but the numbers are becoming clearer and swelling towards pure dominance from a combination that should be let off the leash. The longer Hiller waits on the full-time or at least higher usage of that combo, the more it nags me to think that there’s something else at play, with a line this dominant not being utilized with more regularity.

As Hiller pointed out, he liked the combination of Kopitar with Turcotte and Alex Laferriere, but is that a scoring line? In some semblance, it is. Does Kopitar produce more with a Laferriere swapped out with Kempe? I doubt that this is part of the equation that makes this line a secondary but perhaps a tertiary production line with the uptick in Trevor Moore’s play on the Danault line.

I’ve written about it before: the contrast between specific organizations regarding the Kings’ deployment of their senior players and championship holdovers. They play the Stars tomorrow, and I can’t help but think that Kopitar has now slid into something Jamie Benn has been doing for a few seasons, stepping into a secondary role while the future core takes over. Dallas has had quite the success in doing so (back-to-back conference finals). Call it “buying in”, call it a changing of the guard.

Kopitar stepping into this lesser role for the overall team to be in the best spot to win truly reflects captainship, I believe.

It’s not as if he’s going to disappear into thin air, either. If the team gets a right-handed forward who can score at the deadline, he could very well end up being the winger Kopitar needs to be a better peripheral support player instead of the usual go-to guy for offense on this team.

Two Cups, two Selke and two Lady Byng trophies? Nothing to be ashamed of here, as it might not be for another two plus decades before the Kopitar affect and legacy can be remotely replaced in Los Angeles. In the meantime, he can continue to be perhaps more of a role player instead of the go-to guy, as it best suits someone at his age anyways. It could also be a short-sided, jumping the gun on Kopitar. However, the deployment of 22-55-9 will be a tell-tell sign on if this is actually what is unraveling before our eyes.