FanHouse Anze Kopitar

With the departure of veteran Derek Armstrong, Anze Kopitar assumes a lofty position in the Los Angeles Kings' locker room. "At the ping-pong table," said defenseman Peter Harrold, "Anze is now unquestionably the No. 1 seed."

"I don't know about that," Kopitar said with a slight laugh while driving around his adopted city of Los Angeles. "Dustin Brown is worthy, Matt Greene's got a good serve. We have a pretty deep roster."

Table tennis controversy aside, no one engages in debate when it comes to Kings hockey. The success of LA's roster overhaul of the last three years hinges on Kopitar rising from anonymous all-star to breakout superstar. No pressure, Anze.

FanHouse's Adam Gretz takes a look at his top 50 players in the NHL. No. 38 is Los Angeles Kings forward Anze Kopitar.

One of only four players born in Yugoslavia to play in the NHL (Ivan Boldirev, Goran Bezina, and Stan Smrke being the others), Anze Kopitar is the foundation of the Los Angeles Kings' rebuilding efforts. A team that hasn't made the playoffs in six years, the Kings have had a relatively busy offseason, adding defenseman Rob Scuderi and winger Ryan Smyth to a young, talented lineup that already features Kopitar, Dustin Brown, Drew Doughty and Jack Johnson.

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The Los Angeles Kings entered the offseason with a fair amount of cap space and plethora of young assets that could have been used to bring in a big-name player to help boost a young team from Western Conference bottom-feeder to legitimate playoff contender. Personally, I was pushing for disgruntled Senators forward Dany Heatley, who seemed like he would have been a nice fit. The Kings, however, may have found an even better fit, when you consider Heatley is, apparently, out of his mind and doesn't quite know what he wants or where he wants to go.

Late Friday night, the Kings acquired veteran forward Ryan Smyth from the Colorado Avalanche for defensemen Kyle Quincey and Tom Preissing, and a fifth-round draft pick. For the Kings? They get a gritty, veteran leader still capable of scoring 25-30 goals. For the Avs? It's a salary dump, and a head start in the season-long quest for Taylor Hall.

After jumping out to a 1-0 series lead in the Western Conference Final, Red Wings head coach Mike Babcock held a press conference on Monday and fielded a variety of questions from the media. For the most part, it was your typical, run-of-the-mill press conference.

About half way through, a reporter started asking Babcock about how he once joked that he was ready for the salary cap to break up the young talent the Chicago Blackhawks have assembled over the years. In Babcock's mind, he wasn't joking.

Blues 5, Wild 3: Thanks to their 5-3 win over Minnesota on Sunday, the St. Louis Blues find themselves within one point of the final playoff spot in the Western Conference with just 13 games to play. The Blues managed to hold off a late Minnesota rally, as Brad Boyes sealed the win with an empty net goal in the closing minute.

Sunday's win comes less than 24 hours after the Blues suffered a loss to Detroit in a game that featured three Red Wings goals in just 46 seconds. The Blues have been on a roll in recent weeks, winning 10 of their past 15 games to stay in the playoff hunt.

Also inside Monday's edition of newsmakers: the Islanders continue their strong play by upsetting Chicago, the Blue Jackets have their winning streak snapped, and the Los Angeles Kings demonstrate just how easy it is to screw up a two-on-none breakaway.

If you didn't stay up late Monday night, you missed one of the better NHL games of the season. The Atlanta Thrashers jumped to leads of 3-0 in the first period and 6-3 in the third, but the Los Angeles Kings wouldn't quit. Two Anze Kopitar goals helped the Kings amazingly tie the game late in the third period. The game went to a shootout, where Atlanta prevailed, 2-1. The 7-6 win was the Thrashers' second in as many nights in southern California. They have 14 regulation goals in those two games. Thanks to the point they got with their comeback, the Kings are five points out of a playoff spot in the Western Conference.

Before the season, you probably could have turned a lot of heads by predicting that the Los Angeles Kings would make a run at a Western Conference playoff spot. They finished dead-last in the West a year ago, 20 points out of a playoff spot.

There is still a lot of hockey to go, but the Kings are on the verge of one of the league's better turnarounds this season. Heading into the start of a three-game homestand Thursday night, the Kings are just three points out of the eighth spot in the West, and they're playing the best hockey of any of the teams they're fighting with.

Playing in his first game against his former team, St. Louis goalie Chris Mason was absolutely sensational on Tuesday, stopping 47 shots in regulation and overtime, not to mention two additional shots in a shootout, as a depleted Blues team walked out of Nashville with a 1-0 shootout win.

David Perron and Brad Boyes scored for St. Louis in the shootout, while Rich Peverley and Ville Koistinen came up short for the Predators.

The story of the night was Mason, who was traded by Nashville on June 20, in exchange for a fourth-round pick. The 32-year old goalie was a brick wall in net, as Nashville held a commanding 47-17 edge in the shots department. His best performance of the evening had to be the overtime period, as he turned aside nine shots as Nashville peppered him with shots on a 4-on-3 man advantage, following a questionable penalty call on Blues defenseman Barret Jackman.

The Blues have now picked up points in four consecutive games, after losing eight of their previous nine.

Every week there are moves and stories around the National Hockey League that tend to fall through the cracks. Consider this our weekly roundup of those stories from the previous week, all wrapped up in one neat little package.

On Monday, the Colorado Avalanche announced the signing of Paul Stastny to a five-year, $33 million contract which will begin during the 2009-10 season. Stastny, 22, is currently leading the Avalanche with 15 points in 16 games, after leading the team in scoring with 71 points a season ago as a 21-year old.

Stastny said he was in a state of shock about the deal because just two years ago he was in college, and now he's signing a contract for $33 million to play hockey. Two years after I was in college I was sitting in a cubicle pounding out reports about product movement and how they might help promote long-term growth in the marketplace. I should have spent more time working on my skating.

Stastny's deal is worth slightly less annually than the seven-year, $47 million deal Kings center Anze Kopitar signed prior to the season. Both players are playing in their third seasons, and were selected in the 2005 entry draft, with Kopitar going No. 11 overall, and Stastny going in the second round, No. 44 overall.

Some reactions from the Avalanche blogs:

The Avslova Factor feels they ended up with a good deal for their future franchise player.

ColoradoAvalancheBlog is also quite happy with the unexpected news (unexpected because it happened so early in the season).

Mile High Hockey just couldn't imagine "Son of Stastny" wearing another logo.

Who's In: G J.S. Aubin (FA-TOR), LW Kyle Calder (FA-DET), C Michal Handzus (FA-CHI), D Jon Klemm (FA-DAL), LW Ladislav Nagy (FA-DAL), D Tom Preissing (FA-OTT) and D Brad Stuart (FA-CAL).

Who's Out: G Sean Burke (FA-Limbo), G Mathieu Garon (FA-EDM), RW Tom Kostopoulos (FA-MTL) and D Aaron Miller (FA-VAN).

What's Changed: What hasn't? As FanHouse's Jes Golbez pointed out back in July, Kings GM Dean Lombardi bypassed the big name free agents an opted for importing reasonably priced second tier veterans. The result: He filled the holes in the roster to supplement a promising core of young talent that includes Anze Kopitar, Mike Camalleri, Dustin Brown, Patrick O'Sullivan and Jack Johnson.

Better yet, most of the new imports are coming to town with something to prove. Calder was an enigma during a season where he quietly migrated from Philly to Detroit. Nagy made his way from Phoenix to Dallas and passed without a trace, while Stuart couldn't find his game in either Boston or Calgary. Are we sensing a theme here?

With the Kings boasting additional depth up front and on the blue line, the open question now falls in net, where five different goalies, including disastrous Japanese import Yutaka Fukufuji, gave up 283 goals last season. Second year head coach Marc Crawford admitted he made a hash of the situation, settling on a tandem of Dan Cloutier and Garon, a decision that sentenced Jason LaBarbera to a full season in the minors in order to keep him from being snatched off waivers. But another injury limited Cloutier to only 24 games, opening the revolving door to misery.

This year Cloutier and LaBarbera are back, along with free agent import Aubin. LaBarbera, who had a career year while he was trapped in the AHL and has a quick start in 2005-06 on his resume may be the best bet, but I have my doubts that anybody currently with the big club offers any sort of long-term solution. Here's hoping Rob Blake, Johnson, Stuart and the rest of the blue liners like blocking shots.