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NHL EASTERN CONFERENCE FINALS: LIGHTNING v RANGERSMay 20, 2015Jon CooperTAMPA, FLORIDA: Game Three Tampa Bay – 6 Q. Do the triplets just keep impressing you more and more each game? COACH COOPER: Well, they've impressed me for a long time and now they're impressing the world. It's fun to watch. Q. The Rangers are obviously a very fast team with a strong defensive core. But it seems like the run‑and‑gun style is benefiting you guys. Is that fair to say, and do you prefer to play this way? COACH COOPER: I prefer to play this way if we keep winning. I think we've got a pretty quick team, and they have a quick team. So I don't know how it looks to everybody else, I don't know how it looks on TV, but when you're standing there, it is, pardon the pun, it is lightning fast. It's just amazing how the skill level and the speed, and how these guys can play the way they do at that high pace. But I don't know. They probably haven't seen a team like us on a regular basis, but they're probably looking a little bit in the mirror because we play similar styles. Fortunately for us these last couple here have worked out for us. Q. When you guys give up that late‑tying goal, how do you think you're able to keep your composure and not gloat and win it pretty early in overtime? COACH COOPER: It was one of those games that we never, ever felt we were out of this game. I think I was actually more impressed with how we came back after we were down 2‑0. To me that was‑‑ as I've grown and we've grown together as a team, there was a time early in the infancy of our team that we just would not have come back from that. But it was a huge goal by Stammer, and it kind of got our mojo going. I actually ‑‑ because we were down 2‑0, and I thought we were playing pretty well. I mean, we had the puck the whole time. And they get an early power play that was our bad, and then that kind of unfortunate thing that happened to Carle, and all of a sudden, they've got a breakaway. So we just felt they got two kind of good breaks, but we were playing well. But I was more proud of that. It's a 60‑minute game. Yeah, did it suck that we gave up that tying goal? Sure it did. But. It's the growth of this team. They don't think oh, poor us anymore. It's we don't care. Let's just go out and win this game, and that's what they did. Q. As you've watched this line go, in your opinion, is Ondrej Palat the glue to that line? COACH COOPER: Well, I think‑‑ I don't know if you were at the presser today, but questions were asked about other guys, and they keep bringing up Palat, and bringing up Killorn, a couple guys that probably don't get the notoriety some of the other players do. But those two were men amongst boys tonight. Actually, I shouldn't say "boys" because everybody was a man out there. They were giants among men, I suppose. But they just played the whole 200 feet. They played hard, and they've got speed, skill, and real hockey sense. I think you need players like that, and I think they make a lot of other guy's jobs easier. But they both put the puck on the net, and I was glad to see that because they deserve some recognition that maybe other guys on our team have received. They've all deserved it, but these guys deserve it as well. Q. Stamkos had a really big hit early in the game and he played physical all really throughout the game. What did you think of the way he played? COACH COOPER: He was on tonight. And that's the thing, early in these playoffs, he was, you know, being criticized a little bit for not scoring. If you're going to sit here and say, well, you have a player on your team, well, he's just a scorer, well, then he's just a scorer. Stammer's more than just a scorer. I think as these playoffs have gone on, he's gotten stronger and stronger. He's really committed to playing the 200 feet of the ice. You see things like that, it brought our whole bench up when Stammer did that. I think that kind of triggered a lot of our physicality when your captain dives in there and does stuff like that. Then he got rewarded with a goal and had a really solid game. Q. You've now scored a goal on the power play in five of seven games. Just what's been working? What's been different for you guys? Is it a confidence thing, more patience with the puck, is it shooting the puck more? COACH COOPER: I think you said it, it's the confidence thing. Again, you know, you kind of get criticized a little bit when your power play was 2 for 30 or whatever it was in the Detroit series, and I truly believed it wasn't going as bad as the statistics said. Maybe our power play statistics are a little better now than it's really going. But when the power play gets its mojo, the guys, they feel it. Every time now a penalty is called on them, our guys you just feel like they're going to score. They feel like they're going to score. And that is the big key to it. When you've got that confidence, that mojo, whatever you call it, it's working, especially when you hand the puck to all the skilled players we have there. Q. Kuch took a pretty big hit at the blue line before he passed off the puck for that goal. Many guys are just ‑‑ push that puck in the zone and not shoot it once. Does this show the confidence that he's been playing with to be able to make those plays like that? COACH COOPER: Well, here's the difference in Kuch. I think, was it Game 1? He had the exact same thing. So he scored an overtime goal against Montreal, same way he did tonight. But I think it was Game 1, correct me if I'm wrong. He had the same type of play, but he went to the outside, tried to put it through his legs and some backhand. He has the skill to do all this, but this is him learning as a player. Earlier in the game he did the same thing and tried to go one‑on‑one and beat everybody the whole time. You talk to him and explain, okay, here's the other options you have, and you have a phenomenal shot, you can score from there. There are not a lot of guys that can score from there. We just happen to have a few of them on our team. You shoot the puck in overtime and you never know what's going to happen, and that's what happened. FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports |
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