A horrible turn of events for in Los Angeles, as Kings' superstar Anze Kopitar suffered a broken ankle on Saturday against the Avalanche, after falling awkwardly on his own leg in a puck battle along the boards. Kopitar is expected to miss at least the next six weeks worth of action, pending an MRI, which may drastically change the fortunes of the Kings going forward into the playoffs, unless something miraculous is to happen. The Kings will await results of the MRI to make a full judgement of his injury, but they have announced that they do expect their star to miss at least six weeks, since it was confirmed that the ankle was broken.
Kopitar was enjoying one of his best seasons in the pools in 2011, where he currently ranks 18th in pool scoring with 73 points (26 goals and 47 assists) in 75 games. His previous high in pool rankings was 25th in 2010, where he had scored 81 points in 82 games, which he could have easily equalled or possibly surpassed, with a healthy finish to the last couple weeks of the season. Unfortunately, we'll have to wait until the 2012 season before we'll know if he's capable of setting some new career-high numbers.
In the draft, this is a crushing blow to Ryan M.'s team, as he has now lost his best forward from his team, his second-best player overall, for the remaining two weeks of the season. Ryan goes into Sunday's action in 11th spot in the standings, 12 points out of 10th and only 2 points up on 12th, 11 points up on 13th. With only two weeks to go in the season, it seems doubtful that he'll see the top 10 this year now.In the playoff pool, you would have to have been thinking that the Kings were poised to make a good run, if you were going to take Kopitar in Box 1 of the selection sheet. The Kings, with their young core of players, do have the tools to surprise many and taking Kopitar on your sheet would have also surprised many, but it doesn't look like it'll be a good idea now.
Link to the Injury/News Page
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