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NHL STANLEY CUP FINALS: BLACKHAWKS v LIGHTNINGJune 12, 2015Jon CooperTAMPA, FLORIDA: Practice Day THE MODERATOR: Questions. Q. Braydon Coburn, what did you think when you knew Braydon was coming here, how long it took you to have a sense of what his role would be, how it's evolved? COACH COOPER: I've been extremely impressed with him because he came into a tough situation. Been in Philly for a long time. Comes to our team, then breaks his foot four games in. It's really difficult, especially we've got a pretty tight team, for a guy to come in and try and be in the mix, he's not traveling with us, not doing any of that stuff that's team‑oriented. But it's a tribute to him, what a quality guy he is, what our team is like. We never excluded him. The players brought him wherever we went. All he did was work his tail off and then he has to kind of make his debut in his first game of the playoffs. That's a pretty tall order considering he hadn't played in six weeks. All he's done is he's just gotten progressively better with us. The kid can skate. So that really fits the way we play. He defends. He does everything we were hoping he would. He's kind of anchored us back there as we've tried to elevate our top four. Q. I will waste a question on Ben Bishop. Can you provide an update on his status, whether you expect him to be available tomorrow? COACH COOPER: Who did you ask about? Vasilevskiy or Bish? Q. Bishop. COACH COOPER: Bish, don't be alarmed that he's not out there. I'm not going to sit here and commit as to whether he's going to play Saturday. He's feeling better with each day. When we made the decision not to play him the other night, the decision just wasn't made, Oh, we're not going to play him. It's, We're not playing you and you're taking the next three days off. This was all in the plan. We'll have a better indication tomorrow at the morning skate. Q. I hope you've overcome your battle with mental fatigue. COACH COOPER: Did somebody come out and say it was mental fatigue? Q. Someone, but I won't say who. Rick. COACH COOPER: (Laughter). Q. Just watching the practice, I can't help but notice how loose this team is. COACH COOPER: It was mental fatigue while I was reintroducing myself to my kids (laughter). Q. I notice in the practice how loose the group is. Just through this run, maybe you can speak on how important that's been. I don't know if you set out to do that, but how much has it helped this group to be loose? COACH COOPER: Well, it's probably a little bit of the personality of our team, the way we are, our staff, myself. You got to get caught up in the moment, you have to embrace where we are. It's the middle of June and we're still playing hockey. The Stanley Cup is up for grabs in the best two‑out‑of‑three. I don't think we should be afraid of that. I don't think we should walk around being tense and looking at the magnitude of where we are, being afraid of the moment. Guys, you know, this is the time of our lives. It's two teams left playing in June. If we're not having fun doing this, then why are we doing this? It's been such a phenomenal experience to go through this. I remember on the plane ride home yesterday thinking, in six days, it's going to be over. How much fun, how we've grown together, you just don't want the experience to end. So we're going to enjoy this. May have looked a little bit loose out there, but we looked pretty good. The guys were snapping it around. That's what we want to see. Q. Talk about your power play. Are you satisfied with the way that unit has been working in this series in particular? COACH COOPER: It's a tough question to answer because if you asked me in the Detroit series how our power play was, it was a huge topic of conversation. We get to the Montréal and Rangers series, not one person asked a question about our power play. You go through a game where you're 0‑4, it comes up again. One thing I say about special teams, if a power play goes 1‑5, that's actually really good in this league.  You're sitting at 20%. We were sitting at 0‑4, maybe if we got one more, 1‑5, things would have been different. One thing about a power play, though, it can't swing momentum. We watched that in the Rangers series when they got a couple power plays in the second, one game where we got the shorthanded goal on them on a five‑on‑three. Those are momentum swingers. I tell our guys, You don't have to score every single time, but don't let it swing the momentum of the game. I don't feel like in this series either special teams has swung the game. May it in the next couple? Sure. But we've got to do better, there's no question. I don't think we've gotten near the looks we can. You got to give them credit, they got four guys and a goaltender that are trying to keep the puck out of the net. So, yes, we feel we need to be better in that, no question. We don't thing it swung our momentum away from us at all. Q. Considering your confidence level in Vasilevskiy, how well he played in Game4, would you consider playing Ben Bishop if he were not 100%? COACH COOPER: We're going to play the guy that gives us the best chance to win the game, whoever that guy is. Is that gauged on a percentage basis of how Bish is healthy? I don't know if I can say that. If Ben Bishop can play a game, he's playing. Q. With all the attention that the top six forwards have been getting, sometimes does Val get a little bit forgotten, especially for the role he plays on the defensive end? What does it mean having a guy who won a Cup on this young team still? COACH COOPER: How apropos. The time you ask a question about Val and how important he's been on this team, three‑quarters of this room walked out of here. That's how it goes with Val. You look at the minutes and the situations he plays for us. He kills penalties, he takes the bigs draws, he plays in the power play, he plays in our top six. That goes down as one of those sneaky signings that people have already probably forgotten about. We are not here without him. I put him in the realm of kind of that Palat in the sense that you look at his line, Stammer's going to get major headlines, Killer is coming into his own a little bit. Johnny and Kuch are getting a lot of the headlines. Fil and Paly are staying in the wings. There's responsibilities to both those lines. I don't think they can go without those lines. He is the guy that has won a Cup. He's often spoken to our team about the preparation and things that go into it. I don't know where we'd be without him. I'm glad you asked that question. Q. If you go back to Game5 against the Rangers, if my math is correct, 20 out of 21 periods you have been really defensively focused. Curious your thoughts on that consistency. It was a little bit up and down before that. Where does that defensive consistency come from? COACH COOPER: Believe it or not, that was something we talked about at training camp from the first day. We went through a lot of statistics about the teams that win and teams that don't. Tampa Bay's recent history, we've been a high goal‑scoring team. I really enjoy that. I just don't understand why you can't be both. I think I spoke to this a couple times in this series. Guys got to make a choice. You put a structure in place that we feel is most conducive to our players, but then you got to get them to do it. Obviously scoring goals is a lot more fun than keeping them out of the net. But keeping them out of the net is what is going to get you the big shiny trophy at the end. They're realizing that. I think sometimes in the regular season you get caught up in the goal scoring, playing a little bit more freewheeling, trying to outscore a team. The playoff mentality our team has adapted is it's almost like it's defensive. What are we, 8‑4 on the road this year? You take away the empty‑net goal in Detroit, I don't know that we've given up more than two goals in any game on the road. We haven't won all those games. When you get caught playing a lot of D, trying to play D, sometimes it takes a little bit away from your goal scoring. I will take the chances with our team. If each team is going to get limited chances, I like our odds with anybody we play. Q. Golden State Warriors head coach is Steve Kerr. He came out and admitted that he lied about the starting lineup to the media. I was curious if you have any thoughts on that, you hear another head coach being that honest at a press conference, and if it relates to hockey and how we handle injuries. COACH COOPER: Okay, so you're‑‑ are you asking if I've lied (laughter)? Is my nose growing? Okay, I'll be truthful in this scenario. This is regarding Ben Bishop or all injuries. I don't know sitting here today if Ben Bishop is playing on Saturday. I hope he plays. I don't know if he's going to. He's got to get back on the ice. If he's not in the pregame skate tomorrow, that's a pretty good indication of whether he's going to play or not. I don't think I've‑‑ I'm a pretty truthful guy. I kind of call it how it is. I don't feel like I've lied to anybody. I've maybe not, I don't know, said a lot of things, or I've kept them inside. But what's the point, eh? What's the point of lying? Truth is going to come out anyway, so you might as well tell it when you can. THE MODERATOR: Thank you. COACH COOPER: Thank you. FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports |
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