Per recent tradition, it will be the Kings and Coyotes in a pair of split-squad games to open up preseason on Tuesday night.
LA captain Anze Kopitar will not suit up, but he will get a chance to watch his son play.
Allow us to explain…
“Last season when [Jaret Anderson-Dolan] made the team out of camp and he was given the opportunity to play some early games with us, there wasn’t a lot of time for him to find a place,” Kopitar began. “So we figured we’d help him out and offer him our guest house.”
A waterfront place in Manhattan Beach instead of the Hilton Garden Inn? That’s not a bad upgrade.
“I had been in the hotel for like a month straight,” explained Anderson-Dolan. “When he offered me a place to stay, a chance to get out of the hotel, I think it speaks to the type of people he and his wife both are.”
What about chores, is JAD out walking Gustl?
“No,” Kopitar said with a rather thoughtful look on his face, as if to almost contemplate what a good idea that might be. “However, when the kids want to play hockey, he’s the one that gets pushed into the rink.”
On one hand, living with an NHL star should be quite different than living with a billet family back in the WHL, but not so fast.
“They go back home in the summer, so they weren’t even around the past few months,” said JAD, who spent considerable time training in Los Angeles during the offseason – and living at Casa de Kopitar.
“Well, I stayed out of their house — other than to check on a few things. I stayed in the guest house next door,” he continued. “I was just kind of watching over things for them.”
Like his play on the ice, JAD claims to be a a fairly responsible house guest – even denying ever going into Kopitar’s man cave to watch TV or play video games over the summer. He also says he hasn’t been taking too much heat from any of his future teammates who are still living out of a suitcase at the hotel in El Segundo.
“There have been a couple jokes here and there, but nothing too serious,” shared the promising young forward.
As for any notion that JAD may eventually graduate to the main house… “No, that’s not happening,” Kopitar said with a big laugh.
Does he ever call you dad (ala Drew Doughty and Matt Greene)?
“Not yet.”
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