Kopitar, on the playoffs

Anze Kopitar talked today about his first playoff experience…

Question: Do you feel like you’re going to be something of a target for Vancouver, because of being a leading scorer?

KOPITAR: “It’s one of those things where maybe you have a pretty good season and maybe teams are going to focus on you a little more, but if that’s the case, that’s fine with me. It’s a team game, and we’re just going to have to battle through it and focus on our game, and we’ll see what happens.”

Question: What are the emotions like for you right now?

KOPITAR: “Right now, I’m really excited. I can’t wait to get it started. It’s one of those things where you play 82 games just for this, just to be in this position right now. How it’s going to be, I can’t tell you because I haven’t been there yet, but I’m sure it’s going to be fun and I’m really excited.”

Question: Have you talked to some of the older guys about what the playoffs are like?

KOPITAR: “I’ve talked to Justin and Ryan quite a bit. They say it’s really fun. It’s probably the most enjoyable time of your career, when you go in the playoffs and put a run together or whatever the case may be with us. Like I said, we’re going to have to battle hard and we’re ready for it.”

Question: You didn’t win a lot of games in regulation coming down the stretch. Is there a concern about your ability to close out games in 60 minutes?

KOPITAR: “I don’t think that’s the case. I just think it’s a matter of us starting off better than we did. We’ve been playing from behind lately so much that we can’t catch up as early as 60 minutes, but it’s going to be interesting to see how we start off the games because, let’s face it, our starts have not been very good. That’s what we’re going to focus on, and just play strong throughout 60 minutes.”

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