Kopitar confident he’ll emerge from scoring slump

It’s an interesting and improbable stretch of hockey the Kings have embarked on over the past month. There are the slumps that several top offensive players have endured – Anze Kopitar, Jeff Carter and Tyler Toffoli among them – and then there’s the team-wide offensive production, which has risen sharply over the last month. Los Angeles has averaged 2.94 goals per game over their last 17 games – and would likely have furthered its offensive streak if not for a pesky .944 save percentage by opposing goaltenders over the last seven.

It’s also clear that the team is far from playing its best hockey, and the recent 4-5-2 stretch indicates that while the goals have been collected at a greater rate, wins haven’t been.

Kopitar, whose third period goal in Ottawa was his only tally in the last 13 games, understands that for the team to find success, he needs to deliver.

“I didn’t want to be in this position, obviously, personally. But things are the way they are right now,” he said. “I can’t look back, only look ahead and try to improve and try to get better.”

“…In the beginning, we were winning games and I wasn’t worried as much. Now we’re not winning as many games. But I think everybody on the team will tell you that it’s not really about the personal production and as long as we’re winning games, it doesn’t really matter. But yes, in order for us to win games, I realize I have to get back.”

It has been a particularly tough stretch for the center, who has accumulated a minus-six rating over the last three games. In 28 games this season, Kopitar has six goals, 13 points and a minus-four rating. He logged the lowest points-per-game rate of his career in 2008-09, averaging .8 points by virtue of an 82-game, 66-point season. This year, his production has dropped sharply to .46 points per game.

The thought that he’s playing with a nagging injury has been raised. If he is, it isn’t related to the upper-body injury that caused him to miss three games in late October.

“Every time you miss time it’s not good, but my injury wasn’t that significant,” he said. “It wasn’t that bad. That is definitely not an excuse.”

There’s the saying that the Kings have the targets on their back as Stanley Cup champions and are accustomed to receiving the opposition’s best efforts on a nightly basis. Could that bulls-eye land squarely on Kopitar, whose league-wide profile has risen sharply over the last several seasons? He appears to be receiving a greater share of physical play; could hits such as Rasmus Ristolainen’s and Nikita Zadorov’s along the boards in Buffalo one week ago represent a greater attention to using brute force to throw Kopitar, who has played 275 of a possible 276 games over the last three years, off his game?

“Yeah, it’s physical. It’s always been, maybe more so now,” Kopitar said. “I don’t really pay a whole lot of attention to that. Once you get out on the ice and try to do your thing and things on the ice happen quick. If that’s the case I guess of how it looks from the outside, then so be it.”

If there’s direction in his game, the ultra-skilled and defensively attuned center so adept at protecting the puck feels it’s heading upward. The underlying numbers would support that; Kopitar has raised his five-on-five Corsi-for percentage to 56.2%; that’s 3.9% above the team’s rate when he’s off the ice.

“Yeah, I felt better the last few games and I feel like it’s getting along. But right now, it’s extra hard to get the second assist or stuff like that. You go through phases like that, but this one is just a little bit longer than it was in the past. I’m confident that I’m going to get through it and everybody else will, too.”

Anze Kopitar, on whether opposing teams are playing the Kings tougher:
Yeah. I remember my early years, when Stanley Cup champs came into town you wanted to knock them off. You’re getting everybody’s best game for sure. It’s a challenge for us obviously to respond at the same time. We’ve done a fairly good job, but we can still do better. We’re striving towards that.

Kopitar, on how the team approaches back-to-back games against St. Louis:
It’s just one at a time. To be quite honest with you, until last night I didn’t know we were playing them back-to-back, or the home-and-home series. So I’m pretty sure that’s what everyone’s mentality is. It’s one game at a time. We’ve got to win tonight and then we’ll look ahead after that.

Kopitar, on whether he anticipates a physical game against St. Louis:
Yeah, I don’t think there is any secret to it. They play a heavy game. We play a heavy game. There are some big guys on the ice. I’m sure it’s going to be physical, just like always. It should be a fun game.