Anze Kopitar will look to build on this LA Kings' franchise record this season

Last season, Los Angeles Kings long-time captain Anze Kopitar would set a franchise record and will look to extend that record even more in the upcoming 2024-2025 season. That record is career assists with the Los Angeles Kings which now stands at 792.

Kopitar has been very consistent in this category as he has had 40 or more assists in 14 of his 18 seasons with the Los Angeles Kings. He would break 50 assists in a single season in two of them and set his career-high in this category during the 2017-18 season when he had 57.

In all, that 2017-18 season was easily his best in his long career as he set a career high in goals (35) and points (92) that year.

Kopitar passed Marcel Dionne early last season, who owned the record since 1987 after playing 12 seasons with the Kings. He would end his career with 757 assists which is an incredible total, especially considering it took over 30 years for someone to break it.

It might have fallen sooner if Wayne Gretzky played more than eight seasons with the Los Angeles Kings because he had 672 assists in only 539 games played. If Gretzky had played another two seasons, he more than likely would have passed Dionne.

How many assists could Anze Kopitar have in 2024-2025 for the Los Angeles Kings?

When looking back at the past five seasons, Kopitar has had at least 40 assists in four of those seasons. The past three, he has finished with 48 (2021-22), 46 (2022-23), and 44 this past season (2023-24). While the total has continued to trend down year over year, he has still been pretty consistent and it wouldn't be surprising to see his career total in assists be around 830 assists.

Even at the latter stages of his career, Anze Kopitar continues to be one of the top players on the Los Angeles Kings.