Following the Kings 4-3 win over the visiting St. Louis Blues in Game 4, here’s what Anze Kopitar had to share…
– On the overall game: “I didn’t think it was the best time, especially me and Brownie. We were on the ice for two shifts, and we got scored on twice. A little bit of a hole there, but just the resilience of the team coming back, battling back, pretty much three times. It shows there’s no quit in our game.”
– On if he called for the puck on his goal: “No, I was just hoping that he would see me, and he gave me it.”
– On him sneaking behind the defense on his goal: “Yup, that’s what it was.”
– On how it felt to score: “It felt great, obviously. (wry smile)”
– On if he felt a burden given his recent goal scoring struggles: “Yeah, a little bit. Even if you don’t want to think about it, everyone’s talking about it around you. So you hear about it all the time. You turn on the news, and you read the paper; everybody’s talking about it. So it’s nice to get it out of the way now.”
– On what he attributes the team’s ability to maintain confidence to: “I think just the way we’ve played pretty much throughout the season here. You know, in this building. We did it again tonight. I mean we got ourselves into a little bit of a hole right off the get-go, and we battled back. So it’s nice to see. Now we have to ride this wave into St. Louis, and we realize it’s going to be hard. It’s a tough building to play in, but we gotta bring it. There’s really no other choice or other option that we have. You know, we gotta win one on the road. We’re going to try and do that next game.”
– On Justin Williams performance in this series: “It seems like every year when playoff time comes around, he’s got another gear. He’s been our best player so far – offensively, and producing, and making plays. So fortunately for me, I’ve been playing on his line too. He got me going. We moved the puck pretty well. We had more puck possession time, and therefore we were getting chances. Now it’s just a matter of bearing down, and scoring on the chances.”
– On how important it was for him, Carter, and Richards to get on the score sheet: “Yeah, it’s nice. You know, we were always talking about it, our best players have to be our best players. Mike had two assists, Justin had a goal, I had a goal, Brownie had a big assist, Jeff had a goal, Dustin Penner had a goal. So it’s just a matter of rolling like that, and we have to do it. This time of year, everybody’s gotta produce, and score, and everything. We did that tonight.”
– On Jonathan Quick making big saves in the third: “That’s pretty much a no-brainer. He’s back there all the time, and he’s solid, and he’s given us the chance every time.”
– On getting energy toward the end of the game: “It’s hard to explain but every time you’re going through a drought of 20, 19, you know when you get that one…you feel about 100 pounds lighter, so felt pretty good after that.”
– On battling back from deficits in the game: “Yeah you can’t quit right until the last buzzer. After the second, we said it might take us 19-and-a-half to get the equalizer, but fortunately enough we got the two pretty quick and we held the lead. Now it’s all tied up and best of three going against St. Louis.”
– On the high number of goals compared to other games in series: “It seemed like it was a high scoring affair, compared to the scores, that’s the way it goes. We’re happy we got the win but flying out tomorrow and got to get refocused.”
RELATED CONTENT: Game 4 post-game comments from Justin Williams
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