The Montreal Canadiens are the masters of the jersey retirement ceremonies, but this season, they'll get to bear witness to another team's ceremony as they'll be in Los Angeles when the Kings retire the jersey of their franchise scoring leader, who could very well have been a Hab.
The Los Angeles Kings have announced that they will retire former captain Anze Kopitar’s number this upcoming season, and they will do it on February 24, 2027, when the Montreal Canadiens come to visit. On top of retiring Kopitar’s number 11, LA will also be unveiling a bronze statue of the most productive scorer in team history. The artwork will join those depicting Wayne Gretzky, Luc Robitaille, and Dustin Brown, which was unveiled in 2023. Kopitar’s number will be the eighth the franchise retires after Rob Blake (4), Marcel Dionne (16), Dave Taylor (18), Robitaille (20), Brown (23), Rogie Vachon (30) and Gretzky (99).
It’s no surprise that the Kings elected to retire his jersey with the Canadiens in town, as the newly retired forward revealed in an interview with Elliotte Friedman earlier this year that if he ever had to play for another team, it would have been the Habs. The former Kings’ captain explained that he enjoyed the city of Montreal and playing there. Kopitar hung up his skates as the Kings’ all-time scoring leader with 1,316 points in 1,521 games played. He surpassed LA legend Marcel Dionne on March 14, 2026, in a game against the New Jersey Devils.
The Slovenian centerman could very well have been a Canadiens had the Habs made a different choice at the 2005 draft. The 6-foot-3 and 225-pound pivot was picked 11th overall by Los Angeles. That year, the Canadiens had the fifth overall pick, and they used it to select franchise cornerstone Carey Price. That first-round was an excellent one since it also included Sidney Crosby, Bobby Ryan, Jack Johnson, Mark Staal, Tuukka Rask, and TJ Oshie.
Needless to say, the Canadiens’ center line wouldn’t have had a giant hole down the middle had they elected to go for Kopitar instead of Price, but the Habs’ fate in net would have been quite different. Although if they had picked Kopitar, they could have used the second-round pick, the 45th overall, they used on Guillaume Latendresse to select goaltender Jonathan Quick, who was only picked in the third round by which team? Well, the Kings, of course. Or they could have just stuck with Jose Theodore for much longer, since the Laval native was only 29 years old back then and had already won the Vezina and the Hart Trophy in 2001-02.
Follow Karine on X @KarineHains Bluesky @karinehains.bsky.social and Threads @karinehains.
Bookmark The Hockey News Canadiens' page for all the news and happenings around the Canadiens.
Join the discussion by signing up to the Canadiens' roundtable on The Hockey News.
