The LA Kings are following a familiar blueprint with latest Anze Kopitar announcement
Photo credit: IMAGN IMAGES via Reuters Connect
The LA Kings will retire Anze Kopitar's No. 11 and unveil a bronze statue on February 24, 2027 - and the timing follows a path they have walked before.
The LA Kings have set a date for Anze Kopitar's jersey retirement, and the calendar around it says more than the announcement itself.
No. 11 goes to the rafters at Crypto.com Arena on February 24, 2027, with a bronze statue unveiled the same night.
A blueprint the Kings have already run
Three weeks ago, MayorsManor reported that multiple sources indicated no Kopitar ceremony was on the books for 2026-27, and that it looked like something for further down the road.
That reporting was not sloppy. It missed because Los Angeles does not need long lead time for this.
The club ran an identical sequence with Dustin Brown. He played his last game in spring 2022, the date was announced that July, and No. 23 went up with a statue on February 11, 2023.
Kopitar played his final game on April 26, 2026, a first-round sweep by Colorado. The announcement came in early August, and the ceremony lands in late February.
He left as the franchise leader in games played, assists and points, having passed Marcel Dionne's 45-year-old scoring record in March 2026.
What the short turnaround actually signals
Across the NHL, a franchise icon usually waits years for a banner while committees and schedules get sorted. Los Angeles has now compressed that to under ten months twice in four years.
That is the part worth carrying to other markets. When a club says nothing is planned yet for a retired legend, it is describing paperwork, not appetite.
Kopitar becomes the eighth Kings player with a retired number, joining Rogie Vachon, Dave Taylor, Wayne Gretzky, Luc Robitaille, Rob Blake, Dionne and Brown.
He also becomes the fourth Kings player with a statue outside the building, after Gretzky, Robitaille and Brown.
The first Slovenian to play in the NHL gets bronze in Los Angeles, which pushes this past Southern California.
The statue is the tell.
Nobody commissions one for a player they intend to make wait.
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