Anze Kopitar had nearly 23 minutes of ice time in Tuesday night’s opening game between the Kings and Sharks. He also won nine of 22 faceoffs taken (41%) and contributed two of the team’s 39 hits. Following LA’s 2-0 win, here’s what he had to share…
On Jonathan Quick’s performance:
“Well I don’t know if he helps my game a whole lot. He’s been very sharp lately, so hopefully he can continue playing like that for us.”
On what made the penalty-killing successful:
“I think just staying fairly aggressive and not give them too much time. When you give those guys too much time, they can definitely pick you apart. So you want to be aggressive, and be on top of them as much as you can.”
On if anything kicked in for the Kings after the Sharks strong play in the first five minutes:
“Nothing really, no. It’s the way it goes sometimes. They were obviously excited to play. Since they haven’t played in 10 days or something, but I felt like we weathered the storm pretty good an got our game going.”
On if the Kings were in rhythm after not being off for that long:
“I mean we had a couple of days of, so we didn’t have too much time. I thought we got our game going just like you said, after that five minute mark. The first commercial break we got back into the rhythm and executing our system.”
On how good it was to have home-ice:
“It felt weird to be honest with you. But it is what it is. You know, this time of the year it’s nice to have home-ice, and it’s nice to stay home an extra day, but we realize we’re going to have to do it on the road at some point too. It’s just a matter of going out and performing, and playing our game.”
On the lift from Slava Voynov’s goal late in the firs periodt:
“It’s always nice to get by the first period with a one-goal lead. It was a great play by Mike and a really nice shot by Slava. So it definitely gave us a lift. We were building on that momentum going into the second.”
On there being more room on the ice compared to the St. Louis series:
“Yeah, I don’t think there was as much hitting.”
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