It’s time to say it — Anze Kopitar is better than Patrice Bergeron
If I asked you to imagine the perfect two-way center, someone so gifted and responsible in their own end of the rink that it lent itself to being a model of offensive consistency, whose production was always among the highest on their team, and who led their teams to championship success, you’d think, “Wow, Patrice Bergeron was special.”
But that’s not who I’m talking about.
No, it’s Anze Kopitar that I’m describing, hockey’s quietest superstar. Last season, the 18th of Kopitar’s career, he recorded the ninth 70-point campaign, very rare for 36 year olds in the NHL. Now 37, the Los Angeles Kings’ captain is five games into his 19th season, having already recorded a hat-trick in the regular-season opener against the Buffalo Sabres, and four assists for a team-leading seven points.
With two Stanley Cups, two Selke Trophies, two Lady Byngs and more than 1,200 points in nearly 1,400 career regular-season games, the Slovenian center is one of hockey’s most accomplished players of the 21st century. But when you bring up the best players in the NHL’s post-lockout era, seldom does Kopitar’s name come up. If you asked 10 hockey fans who was better between Kopitar and Bergeron, 10 out of 10 would say the latter.
I hope to highlight why Kopitar is not just better than the former Boston Bruins’ captain, but is one of the game’s greatest two-way centers, and why Kopitar’s quiet domination in Hollywood will earn him entry into the Hockey Hall of Fame on his first try.
Kopitar was, and is, the complete package
When you look at the Hockey DB pages of the Kings between Kopitar’s rookie season (2006-07) and present day, it’s jarring how valuable Kopitar is to L.A. hockey.
Between Kopitar’s rookie campaign and last season, Kopitar led his team in scoring every year except in three: his first season, when Mike Cammalleri and Alex Frolov finished ahead of him; 2016-17, when Carter finished ahead of him, and 2023-24, when both Adrian Kempe and Kevin Fiala squeaked past him.
Think about it: in all but three seasons, he led the team in points. That level of longevity and consistency is up there with Steve Yzerman with the Detroit Red Wings, Marcel Dionne with the Kings, and a bunch of players whose entire careers were played on black and white television or narrated by Foster Hewitt on the radio.
If you really want to see how much he means to his team, look at the two seasons the Kings won the Stanley Cup. In 2011-12, Kopitar had 25 goals and 51 assists for 76 points, leading in all three categories, including a 17-point margin between him and second-place Justin Williams. In 2013-14, he led in all three categories again (29 goals, 41 assists, 70 points) with an even wider 20-point gap between him and second-place Jeff Carter.
The argument for why Bergeron had good, but not great offensive seasons was that he was focused on his defensive game, protecting his own end and taking pucks away from the opponent. You can credit — or blame — former Bruins’ head coach Claude Julien for that. But a big reason for that is that Bergeron had the privilege of being surrounded by greater offensive talents: Marc Savard, David Krejci, Brad Marchand, and David Pastrnak. Both Marchand and Pastrnak are future Hall of Famers. Yes, Bergeron led the team in scoring on a few occasions, but never with a massive gap between him and No. 2.
When you can be an all-world talent and not be relied on to provide offense, you can be Guy Carbonneau 2.0.
Who would you say was Kopitar’s greatest linemate? Carter? Williams? Mike Richards? Dustin Brown? None of those players will go to the Hall of Fame. Heck, every time they shared the ice, you could say that defenseman Drew Doughty was his greatest linemate.
As for their analytics, I’ll concede that Bergeron’s look a shade better: according to Hockey Reference, Bergeron’s even-strength Corsi was 58.3 percent, which made me cackle out loud like a hyena while typing this. Compare that to Kopitar’s career mark of 54.2 percent, and you can make the case Bergeron was better possession-wise.
But remember: when you get to skate on lines with the likes of Marchand, Pastrnak and Krejci, your numbers improve. When you’re forced to carry the likes of Richards and Brown up and down the ice, they take a hit.
East-coast bias
I’ve rolled an eye or two at the claim of there being an east-coast bias among sports writers. It’s hard to look at the number of professional athletes who were named Most Valuable Player that played for basketball’s Los Angeles Lakers or Golden State Warriors, baseball’s Los Angeles Dodgers and the Los Angeles Angels and see an inherent favoritism for the New York-, Chicago- and Boston-based teams.
But for all the reasons hockey is unique, the one that lends itself to the east coast argument is that it’s inherently regional. Even with subscription packages that allow fans to watch any team play on any given night, the number of fans who watch games that don’t involve their favorite team is low. Sure, some of you reading this are terminally online and are so entrenched in Hockey Twitt-, er, Hockey X, that you keep tabs on the game’s best players, and you don’t mind staying up till 1 a.m. to watch the San Jose Sharks get trounced by the Dallas Stars.
But in professional hockey, the most popular teams with the deepest pool of media are in New York, Chicago, every Canadian city and, of course, Boston.
So when a player like Kopitar, who plays for a team that’s arguably the 13th-most popular professional sports franchise in their state or province (never mind the amount of college basketball and football programs), quietly wins nearly every shift, every night, they get lost in the shuffle.
Look at the Selke Trophies and the nominations: through his first 18 NHL seasons, Kopitar has only been nominated four times, winning twice. No doubt impressive, but considering Bergeron was nominated 11 times, something’s wrong. With the amount of California hockey I watched in the 2010s, you can’t tell me Kopitar wasn’t at least one the three best defensive forwards in the game for a stretch of 10 seasons.
I can’t tell you how many nights I saw Kopitar shutdown the likes of Ryan Getzlaf, Corey Perry, Joe Thornton, Patrick Marleau, Logan Couture, and we haven’t even mentioned the wars between the Kings and Sharks and Anaheim Ducks and Chicago Blackhawks, and how two of teams seemed to be in the Western Conference Final every spring. The image of Patrick Kane dropping F-bombs on the bench after a Kopitar stick-lift led to a turnover and Los Angeles goal is burned into my memory.
Speaking of the Blackhawks: Jonathan Toews, one of the most successful captains in hockey history, who led Chicago to three Stanley Cups in five seasons between 2010 and 2015, is not nearly as good a player as either Kopitar or Bergeron*.
*Remember, saying that one future Hall of Famer isn’t as good as another future Hall of Famer is not an indictment, so don’t bother wasting ink for your letter to the editor
Toews only hit the 60-point mark in seven of his 15 NHL seasons, and the even-strength analytics in the second half of his career are only slightly above average. There’s a case to be made that he was the best player during Chicago’s 2010 run, hence the Conn Smythe Trophy, but at any point during his 15 seasons, was he the best player on the team?
Patrick Kane was one of hockey’s most dynamic talents, someone who could break open a game with one shift. Don’t forget Hall of Fame winger Marian Hossa, another elite two-way talent who only got Selke votes in the latter half of his career. Duncan Keith is on the short list for the best defensemen of the 21st century, and he and Brent Seabrook anchored the blue line through their run.
The point is, Toews was a cog in the impressive machine that was the Blackhawks’ 2010s dynasty. No doubt a talented center whose legacy is cemented. But he’s not better than Kopitar, yet if you asked 10 hockey fans off the top of their head, just like Bergeron, they’d say Toews was better.
First-ballot Hall of Fame
Look, I’m not going to blame the people who read the social media post that promotes this story and write a snarky reply, flabbergasted that an argument like this could be made. I won’t even hold a grudge against those who screenshot a paragraph from the piece and tweet it with the caption “lol wow,” thinking that whatever I’ve written was designed in a lab to be clickbait. To quote former U.S. senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan, “Everyone is entitled to their own opinion, but not their own facts.”
And the facts are simple: Kopitar is the best two-way forward of the 21st century, and those who cheer for the Kings or a team in the Pacific Division have been privileged to watch him dominate at both ends of the rink.
If he were Canadian instead of one of only three Slovenians to ever play in the NHL, he would have Olympic gold medals to amplify his impact on the game. If a Canadian team or one in the American northeast drafted him instead of Los Angeles, and if he had another future Hall of Famer on his wing, he might be the one with six Selke Trophies.
Great centers win nearly every shift in every game; they make fans smarter by watching the little things they do, staying low and supporting their defense in their own end, then driving play northbound towards the opposing net. Casual observers enjoy the sight of them burying a wrist shot for a goal, while the most seasoned scout marvels at the play 150 feet away that led to the end result. Kopitar is that exact player, and he’s one of the best to ever play.
It won’t be until the weeks leading up to his Hall of Fame induction ceremony that pundits and panels look back at his career and realize just how incredible he was.
Until then, the majority don’t know. But if you read this, now you know.