With Anze Kopitar’s retirement now official, the Kings face a question they haven’t had to answer in a decade: who wears the C?
During exit interviews this week, three of the team’s most prominent voices — Adrian Kempe, Mikey Anderson, and Drew Doughty — were each asked directly about the captaincy. Two of the three took the diplomatic route.
Kempe emphasized the group over himself, pointing to Kopitar’s lead-by-example style as a model he hopes to carry forward.
“As a group, everybody knows how good Kopitar is and was. Really big shoes to fill,” Kempe said. “But I think we have to come together more as a team and step up — everybody. I don’t want to change the person I am in the locker room or on the ice just to be more vocal. I’m still trying to be the same guy I am.”
He pointed to Kopitar’s quiet authority as a template: “Kopitar wasn’t the most vocal guy in the locker room, but you could definitely tell his leadership on the ice. That’s something I’ve been trying to learn from him and take into my game. Just take it up an extra step next year, and hopefully some other guys are thinking the same way. So we can move forward and keep that leadership that’s been so good for so long.”
Anderson took a similar approach, rattling off a list of leaders past and present rather than putting his own name forward.
“If you take Kopi out of it, you still have Dewey, who’s been here. You got Juice. Eddie’s in there. Laughton brought some good stuff when he came at the end. You have a guy like Bread that’s played forever,” Anderson said. “But the guys that have been in LA [we] got to learn from, Brown…Quick, Carter, Martinez — all these guys that won. You can still talk to them. They’re very engaged and want to keep helping the organization.”
“With Kopi leaving, I think we’re still in a great spot to carry on the culture they’ve built,” he added. “That’s what’s had success in LA. We owe it to them to try and carry on what they’ve done for the city and for us.”
Then there was Doughty, who didn’t deflect at all.
“I would love to be the captain of this team,” Doughty said. “It’s something, I guess when I was younger I never thought of. I kind of grew into a leadership role, and now it’s something I cherish. It would mean the world to me to be captain.”
No timeline has been set for the decision, and the Kings have not publicly commented on their plans for the captaincy. But Doughty made one thing clear — if they ask, he’s not going to think about it.
We addressed this topic — and four other key issues — in a detailed article below.
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