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NHL EASTERN CONFERENCE FINAL: LIGHTNING v PENGUINS

May 13, 2016

Jon Cooper

Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania: Game One

Q. Coach Cooper, are there any lineup changes? Is J.T. Brown ready to go tonight?
COACH COOPER: You'll have to wait for the puck drop to find that out.

Q. You mentioned to some of your players that, obviously, the Penguins are a three, four line deep team, and they also said so are we a little bit. Does that help you when you're matching up, especially on the road? Do you feel comfortable putting any line against them?
COACH COOPER: Yeah, you've watched us long enough. We've been comfortable in these situations. It's just that Game 1s are tough because you really don't know what to expect until you're in the game. And you can watch all the video you want, but it really doesn't tell you the story until you're in there.
You know, we've watched what lines have been effective for them, and some of their big stars haven't scored to the point potential they're supposedly supposed to score at, but they've been really effective. Just because they haven't scored goals, they're winning hockey games, which means they're doing something right.
That Game 1 tells a lot of what's going to kind of go on as the series goes. So until you're in it, it's really hard to say who's going against who or who's matching up against who, and he gets to make most of the decisions anyway because he's the home coach.

Q. Coach, just for those of us that you probably have this question the first two rounds, but Stammer was talking about this this morning. Just to clarify, is it a daily monitoring? Does he check with the -- or do you guys check with the doctors every day just to see how the assessment goes?
COACH COOPER: Yeah, that's a tough one for me to answer, because usually I'm the last guy to know. It goes through a whole plethora of people with degrees more than I have. But when things are -- if they are going to get close, we're going to know beforehand. But I think he's used the term holding pattern. That's what I think. So I'm rolling with that as well.
I'm sure it's frustrating for him because he's out there with us and skating hard and doing all those things, but it's -- he's not going to be rushed into this. Doctors are going to do what's right for his health.
The encouraging thing is he's much closer today than he was the day after we played Montreal at the end of the season. So we just can't sit here and can't judge or guess when he's going to come back because, when you start doing that, then you start getting frustrated. Hopefully, it's going to be soon here, which means he's going to be able to play an NHL game when his health 100 percent and be really happy for him and for us.

Q. If I could ask you then, could you care to judge or guess about Anton Stralman, who has practiced fully and --
COACH COOPER: I can't, I'm sorry.

Q. He said he hopes to play in the series.
COACH COOPER: What was the line yesterday? Everybody's indefinite until they're not.

Q. Mike Sullivan said last round, because there was a lot made of what's going to happen with Sidney Crosby's line versus Ovechkin's line, how they were going to match, whether both coaches were comfortable with that. My sense is you are a guy that's not necessarily into chasing matchups necessarily. Are you in favor of the idea of putting power against power if that's how it shakes down, or do you have a feeling on what you prefer?
COACH COOPER: I think ultimately your best players eventually end up playing against the best players. It just kind of works out that way because usually one team's behind and chasing another team, and they're trying to get their best players out there probably more. Or the other team's winning, and they're trying to make their matchups. It depends, is the home team winning, or is the road team winning? There's so many factors that go into that.
I truly believe in matchups when they work, and I don't believe in them when they don't. So it's game by game. You've got to get your feel, and I think that's what I tried to do is -- you know, being in the league a little bit, a few years now, and you get a feel for players now, your players, other team's players, what may work, what may not, and that's just something in the driver's seat.
Mike, he's been in the driver's seat for a little bit longer than I have, and he's got that same feel, and I think both of us probably have a little bit of a luxury of we're pretty confident in our lines all the way through. So it kind of makes it a little bit easier for us.
But, yeah, the matchup game, that's where the chess match begins, and I guess we'll find out in a little bit how this is going to go.

Q. Jon, Game 1s haven't always been kind to the Lightning in recent years. Have you figured out a way to keep that from happening tonight?
COACH COOPER: I'll tell you that in three hours. Yeah, I don't know why we've done that to ourselves in a few of these series. You know, we drop that first one. Fortunately for us, we've figured out to win -- how to play Game 2s, and it's helped us out.
If -- we came here to win two games. So it's -- and if you walk away here and we drop the first one and ended up winning the second one, well, that wouldn't be -- it's not as good as winning both, but it's better than losing both.
These Game 1s, they're tough. We've played them every way. We've had rest. We haven't had rest. It's -- they're hard to figure out because the teams haven't played each other. Plus they're coming off demanding series against somebody else, and usually there's not a -- I don't know -- hatred for each other in Game 1. So I just think one big thing about Game 1 is like you try and get the lead. It's much better to play with the lead than chasing the game.

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