Los Angeles Kings captain Anze Kopitar to retire after 2025-26 NHL season

Los Angeles Kings captain Anze Kopitar, a franchise great who helped his team secure two Stanley Cup trophies between 2012 and 2014, announced Thursday that he will retire at the end of the 2025-26 NHL season. The upcoming season marks Kopitar’s 20th and final season as a player, and the announcement of his retirement comes just after his 38th birthday.

Kopitar, who played his entire career with the Kings, enters the final season of a two-year contract extension that he signed in 2023 that has allowed him to affirm his legacy as one of the greatest players in franchise history. A two-way center known for his defensive prowess in particular, Kopitar is the Kings’ all-time leader in games played (1,454) and assists (838) and sits just 30 points away from surpassing Marcel Dionne as the team’s all-time leading scorer (Dionne’s record is 1,307 points). Last year, Kopitar finished second on the Kings with 67 points and ice-time (18:57), and tied for the team lead with seven game-winning goals.

The Kings chose Kopitar with the No. 11-overall pick in the 2005 NHL Draft, becoming a national hero in Slovenia when he became the first Slovenian to play in the NHL upon his debut in 2006-07. He has since become a pillar of the Kings franchise, with his greatest contribution coming as a key member of their Stanley Cup-winning teams in 2012 and 2014. He has also earned enormous respect around the league, as he has won the Selke Trophy twice (2016, 2018) and has also earned three Lady Byng Trophies for gentlemanly play, two of which have come in the last three seasons in 2023 and 2025.