In 2009, center Anze Kopitar was thriving as a youngster for the L.A. Kings. And in this THN archive story, Ryan Kennedy profiled Kopitar as he developed into a bona fide star.

In 2009, then-Los Angeles Kings youngster Anze Kopitar was in the first half of a season in which he'd set new personal-bests in goals (34), assists (47) and points (81). And in this cover story from THN's Dec. 14, 2009 edition, writer Ryan Kennedy put togther a deep-dive profile of Kopitar:

Anze The Giant

By Ryan Kennedy

Let the record show that before Shepard Fairey immortalized U.S. president Barack Obama with his “Hope” portrait, the artist did the same for Los Angeles Kings star Anze Kopitar.

OK, there’s a bit of an asterisk to the story.

Before his Obama piece, Fairey was best known for a counterculture graphic of Andre the Giant with the word “Obey” under the famed wrestler’s face. Back in 2005, Kings fans, buoyed by the play of their newest hope, copied Kopitar’s mug on the stencil with the word “Anze” – which is actually pronounced “Ahn-Jay” – underneath and spray-painted the image all over Los Angeles. A King was born.

And while Kopitar’s offensive output had been impressive in his first three NHL seasons, it has been his play through the first one-third of the 2009-10 campaign that has Kings fans thinking playoffs for the first time since before the lockout – and his numbers suggest the NHL’s first Slovenian import is in line for the Art Ross Trophy and perhaps even the Hart.

“It would be a great honor,” said Kopitar in reference to a possible scoring title. “Just to be on top right now, it’s great, but there’s still a lot of hockey left and lot of work to be done.”

Thanks to instant chemistry with new linemates Ryan Smyth and Justin Williams, an emphasis on a puck-hawking forecheck and a new commitment to off-season training, Kopitar is more prepared than ever to make himself a household name – and put his homeland on the hockey map.

In a nation of two million people where basketball and soccer dominate, there aren’t a lot of “hockey families” in Slovenia, but the Kopitars certainly qualify. Anze’s father, Matjaz, played for the hometown squad in Jesenice, part of the then-Yugoslavian League. Anze began skating at age three-and-a-half and was a rink rat from the start. His father eventually built him a small outdoor rink in the backyard and when he gave Anze his first hockey stick, the little tyke played until his mother called him in for bedtime.

Meanwhile, Slovenia as a nation was being formed. The Ten-Day War of 1991 saw Matjaz head to the front to fight for – and win – independence, while Anze and the rest of the clan headed for their summer home up in the mountains.

As Kopitar grew, he grew big – and talented. He demolished the Slovenian ranks as a teen, racking up 76 points in 14 games (5.5 per game if you’re trying to do the math) as a 15-year-old on Jesenice’s under-18 squad. A year later, he put up 25 points in 21 games for the senior league’s Kranjska Gora team.

After that, it was clear Slovenia was not big enough in a hockey sense for young Kopitar, who took his act to Sweden, acquitting himself well in both the junior and senior ranks with Sodertalje.

But scouts were guarded. You said Slovenia, not Slovakia, right? Never heard of it.

One scout admitted the Slovenia thing was a factor, but teams also had other concerns.

“People wondered if he would be able to skate in the NHL,” he said. “He was a little knock-kneed.”

Kings GM Dean Lombardi was a scout for the Philadelphia Flyers back in 2005 and recalled the same wariness when he helmed the Sharks and took German Marco Sturm in the first round of the 1996 draft.

“And I traded up to take him,” Lombardi said.

Hence, mistakes were made, opportunities missed. Kopitar slipped to No. 11 in the 2005 draft, where he was happily scooped up by then-Kings GM Dave Taylor. Looking back, Kopitar should have gone second overall, after Sidney Crosby. Some NHL scouts didn’t even want to comment for this story, since Kopitar’s absence from their team’s lineup is still a sore spot within their respective organizations.

But there was work to be done.

“His poise at that age was pretty impressive,” said Lombardi, who scouted Kopitar at an NHL rookie tournament later that summer. “You could see the kid had really good vision, but he was raw.”

Kopitar put up great totals in his first two NHL seasons – 138 points in 154 games – but the Kings were going nowhere. In the summer of 2008, Lombardi made a splash in free agency, though the GM considers it more of a bellyflop.

“People thought it was great when we brought in guys like Ladislav Nagy, Tom Preissing and Michal Handzus,” Lombardi said. “When you have to go out and get seven or eight free agents, that’s not a good sign.”

The Kings’ youngsters were still too young and the vets not good enough. Worse, Los Angeles was not so much a team as it was a bunch of guys who all happened to wear black and purple on the same night 82 times a year. Lombardi noted that on most NHL teams, a cluster of players will spend a part of the summer training together in the city; it’s good for bonding and a great way to push each other physically. So how many Kings remained in Los Angeles in the summer of 2008?

“Not one player stayed to train in the summer,” said Lombardi dejectedly.

The 2008-09 season began with a new coach in Terry Murray and a new philosophy: Check like your life depended on it.

“Last year, everything was about the checking,” Murray said. “When I sat down with our scouts and coaches, we looked at goals against, shots against, Grade A scoring chances against…There were just too many.”

Kopitar, the point-producer, was all ears.

“He bought in 100 percent and I really liked that buy-in from him,” Murray said. “He was on board with everything, 200 feet.”

While Kopitar’s points total dipped to 66 from 77, the light went off in his head.

“I want to be a good two-way player,” he said. “You definitely get a lot more pucks when you’re checking and getting on top of guys… In one way, it’s easier.”

The Kings were also breaking in a lot of youngsters – Oscar Moller, Ted Purcell, Brian Boyle as well as current regulars Drew Doughty, Wayne Simmonds and Davis Drewiske.

“Last year we were put together for, let’s say, the final year of rebuilding,” Kopitar said. “There was a couple of rookies with no NHL experience, but now you have players like Drew and Wayne who have at least 80 games.”

Kopitar has also had an effect on defenseman Drewiske, both as a road roommate and a formidable opponent in practice.

“It’s his spacing, his body position,” Drewiske said. “I think he has a pretty good sense of if you’re off-balance or out of position, he’ll throw a shoulder or stick his leg out to protect the puck.”

Playing between wingers Williams and Smyth (whose absence in late November was felt when he went down with an upper-body injury), Kopitar tore up the league, leading the NHL in scoring through 24 games with 33 points.

“I’ve always thought he was a great player,” said Smyth, who first encountered a 17-year-old ‘Kopi’ at the 2005 World Championship. “He competes, he’s big, he’s strong, he’s fast and he makes plays. He’s overlooked in many ways, but he’s shining.”

And the love is reciprocal.

“We got put together right from the start of training camp and we developed great chemistry right off the bat,” Kopitar said. “Ryan’s a going-to-the-net guy, me and Justin are more to the outside. Justin is a shooter, I’m more of a playmaker. That’s what makes it a great mix.”

It also helps that Smyth is one of the more revered figures in the game today, a character guy who can turn a dressing room on with his gap-toothed smile.

“When everyone gets to the dressing room and sees a guy laughing and smiling like Smitty, it carries over,” Kopitar said. “Soon you have 20 guys laughing and smiling.”

His teammates describe him as a humble, laid-back guy, but nothing gets Kopitar smiling more than talking about his homeland. When Slovenia stunned Russia 1-0 in World Cup soccer qualifying in mid-November, all the boys heard about it. Smyth even got an impromptu geography lesson on one of his several dinners with Kopitar this year.

“He told me his girlfriend lives on the other side of the country,” Smyth said. “But she’s only two hours away. That’s how small it is.”

Now Ines is in L.A., as are Kopitar’s parents, who came over from Slovenia three years ago. Younger brother Gasper plays for the Western League’s Portland Winterhawks after spending time with the Los Angeles Jr. Kings program.

While plunking down an Eastern European family in the middle of Manhattan Beach has required an obvious adjustment for all the Kopitars, Anze feels comfortable navigating the roads of one of the world’s most chaotic cities. Did he ever picture himself living in (or at least next to) Hollywood when he was skating around that backyard rink in Jesenice?

“No, absolutely not,” he said. “You see Hollywood on TV, but that’s it.”

Not that it’s been all sunshine in L.A. since the 6-foot-3, 222-pound center arrived. The Kings – along with Florida and Toronto – have missed the playoffs every year since the lockout, while the Kings’ relatively new neighbor, the Anaheim Ducks, won the Stanley Cup in 2007. The Kings never have.

The rebuild has been contentious, especially since the fruits are just beginning to ripen. But GM Lombardi has stressed patience and his “I told you so!” moment is fast approaching.

“It’s not easy for fans to understand,” Lombardi said. “Look at Chicago. Thirteen of their own draft picks were in the conference final last year. That’s amazing. And that went back to what Dale Tallon started in 2002. It took them until last year when they broke through. That’s seven years. Chicago didn’t come out of nowhere.”

And neither will Los Angeles. Through 25 games, the Kings boasted nine players who had already hit double-digits in points, including sophomores Doughty and Simmonds. They’re surviving in net with unlikely starter Jonathan Quick and getting offensive contributions from captain Dustin Brown and Jarret Stoll on the second line.

“Secondary scoring is critical in this league,” Murray said. “Kopi’s line is going to get a lot more attention from here on out and if they get shut down one night, somebody else has to be there.”

Fortunately, the Kings are a team once again. Lombardi noted after the summer of 2008’s oh-fer, nearly half the squad trained in town together before this season, including Kopitar, who returned from a Slovenian jaunt in July. Concentrating on running and exercises that would increase his on-ice stamina, Kopitar gave himself a chance to be all he could be for the first time in his NHL career.

“He hadn’t trained like a pro, and that’s not unusual for young guys,” Lombardi said. “Last year he’d be gassed halfway through a shift. There’s still upside. He’s going to be scary when, like (Joe) Sakic and (Steve) Yzerman, he turns that corner.”

Indeed, with his Juggernaut frame, Kopitar is a whole lot to handle when he gets going, something teams are finding out very quickly.

“The skill and the size and the strength have been there since he came over,” said the rival scout. “It’s the poise and confidence that are improving.”

As for a ceiling on Kopitar’s talents: “I don’t know whether there is one. It looks like he could get somewhere around 100 points this year.”

But numbers and accolades will mean nothing if the Kings can’t get to the post-season for the first time in Kopitar’s career. And while the Kings prefer to put the onus on their depth, having a catalyst, a player who can be unstoppable when needed, will be the true key to the promised land.

“If the team relies on me for offense, that’s an honor for me,” Kopitar said. “I certainly want to take that challenge.”

Whether Kopitar becomes a West Coast Crosby or SoCal Thornton remains to be seen, but the opportunity is certainly there.

“The finest thing you can say about an athlete is that he’s a winner,” said Lombardi, citing Derek Jeter, Larry Bird and Magic Johnson. “I sincerely believe this kid cares and he wants it. He’s not going to be satisfied with leading the league in points, he wants the whole package.”

Murray was more blunt: “Players are truly evaluated when they get to the playoffs.”

Fair play. And if Kopitar can get the Kings into the post-season and surprise some teams with a bunch of game youngsters and savvy vets, fans in L.A. won’t just be spray-painting his name under bridges; they’ll be shouting it from the rooftops.