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NHL EASTERN CONFERENCE FINAL: LIGHTNING v PENGUINS

May 20, 2016

Jon Cooper

Tampa, Florida: Game Four

Tampa Bay – 4
Pittsburgh – 3

Q. Mr. Cooper, how was your heart rate there in the third period?
COACH COOPER: When you play 40 playoff games in the last two years, you're used to things like that, and we've been through these games before, as well as, I'm sure, Pittsburgh has.
You know, the one thing on the bench was it doesn't matter how you get there. So whether you're up 4-0, it becomes 4-3, or you're down 3-0 and you go ahead 4-3, it doesn't matter. You're still winning. So you've got to play like that.
Ultimately, the goal is to win the hockey game, and when you wake up in the morning, it's not how they came back and made it a game. Ultimately, the series is 2-2.
As much as -- or as how disappointed we were after Game 3 and have to turn the page, we did that, and I thought we deserved to win that hockey game tonight. Now, in saying that, we have to turn the page as well because this game, it's over, and now it's the best of three. We can't carry this over and say, oh, well, just because we won Game 4, we're going to win Game 5. Turn the page and get back to what we're doing.
I think with that answer, I probably took like six questions away.

Q. Coop, throughout the year, Callahan's contributions don't always show up on the score sheet, but when he scores a goal like tonight, how does that affect the team?
COACH COOPER: That's the start we needed. You can't sit here and say, oh, you're -- you want your team to make a push. You want them to say, okay, let's make a stand. We got embarrassed at home in Game 3, let's make a stand.
And you can't ask for anything more than Callahan scoring the first shift. 27 seconds in, everybody -- I don't think anybody sat down yet, and they didn't need to.
You can just -- the energy in the building after we scored, it just pushed us, and we carried that through. I can't say enough about Ryan Callahan and his positive effect on our team.

Q. Coach, in the same manner, like more than just the goal, but the energy, the physical play of he and Brian Boyle, you know, at times they get the Penguins off their games. We've seen that happen against the Islanders. We've seen that happen against Detroit, where they contribute on the scoreboard, but they also inflict their will on the other team and get them off their game, just how their influence in that way affects games.
COACH COOPER: Ryan Callahan is the leader in that department, there's no question. I think a big part of our success is how he had to grind out Detroit. I don't think anyone expected the feistiness that happened in that series, and I think that helped us against the Islanders, who are a physical team that likes to grind it out. But that win over Detroit pushed us to be able to play -- keep playing that way.
And I thought we actually did that a little bit in Game 1. But this is a different series, and Pittsburgh doesn't play quite that way. I think we stopped playing that way, and tonight we showed a will in that department of being physical and kind of digging our heels in.
And Callahan and Boyle, Brown, Paquette, Palat, you just go down the list, and those guys, that's what they were doing, and that gives us a huge lift.

Q. Drouin had a bit of rough game on Wednesday. How important was it for him, his psyche, to just come back tonight, get a big goal and just play a much better game?
COACH COOPER: You're not going to sail through playoffs and sit here and say, oh, well, we play so many games, every one is a great one. He's still a young player, and the one thing is you've got to trust your players. Joe has earned trust, so if he made a mistake 200 feet from his net that ended up in our net -- but there's a whole bunch of mistakes that happened, but it wasn't a situation where we said, well, we're going to sit players for that.
This is a team sport, and we're going to win as a team. Guys make mistakes all the time. But Jonathan's done way more positive than he has negative. There's not a chance we're going to sit him down or anybody down because they make one or two mistakes in a game. That kid is mentally tough, and he's proven that throughout this whole year and now into the playoffs.
Again, you can't sit here and pinpoint one specific reason why we're sitting here in the conference final 2-2, but I'll tell you, Jonathan Drouin's had a big part of that.

Q. You move some lines around a little bit. You put some players back in familiar positions. How much do you think that helped inject some energy and kind of get the focus on guys after what happened in Game 3?
COACH COOPER: To be honest, when you're sitting here and you won the game, you can say, oh, it was a great move. But we just -- there were guys that needed more minutes. There were guys that needed less minutes. We needed to find some matchups where we thought we could neutralize some players, and it -- you don't really -- it's harder to do that when you're on the road for two games because you don't really have last change.
You get to learn a little bit from Game 3 and some of the things that dictate play. You sit down as a staff, and it's our job, you've got to make adjustments. I thought our staff did a great job of doing that. But ultimately -- and I think I said this pregame, what it really came down to is we had to play better, ultimately what it is. What our guys did, they played better. So tip your hat to our players because it was a hell of an effort.

Q. (No microphone)?
COACH COOPER: It is. When somebody came in and told me what had happened, it was just almost one of those, you know, I should just expect this to happen. But now the talk is somebody should shoot one in Johnny's mouth in warmups in Game 5, because I thought he had a hell of a game. So he should probably keep the cage on again in warmups.

Q. We've heard you say a couple of times you don't fake your way into the Final Four. Why are you saying that? Is that for us? Is that for your team?
COACH COOPER: I think it's for everybody that's ever played in a conference final for the last hundred years. You have to beat -- you think about it. It's a 30-team league, and 16 make the playoffs, and the margin of error is between winning and losing is so close. And then you get down to eight, and now you have to grind through that, and now you're down to four.
I truly believe those teams have earned their way, and I think everybody's earned their way in that regard. So when you get to this point, it's -- now it's -- it's just elite teams. And there's other elite teams that aren't playing right now. That's why you just feel extremely fortunate to be in the situation we're in and to be here two years in a row.
But when you get this far, all these teams are -- they're just lights out.

Q. Coop, obviously, you guys made some fans a little nervous in the third period. What was the mood on the bench? What was your mood as that goes from 4-0 to 4-1 to 4-2 to 4-3?
COACH COOPER: Well, honestly, I thought, just the way things happened, like in Kessel's goal -- Bonino's dumping that in, our D gaps, and the puck can go a thousand different ways, and it goes right back onto Bonino's stick, who hits Kessel full in stride. He's a shooter, and that kid can put the puck in the net. So right away you're thinking, all right, that's -- they got a bounce, and it ended up being a very fortunate result for them.
Second one, we weren't gapped. I'll have to look at the tape again. Kunitz and Kockkock get -- say that five times fast. They get tied up, and Kockkock goes down. I'm thinking again have we got a penalty or not? All of a sudden, they're wide open, and you've got a world class player in the slot, and it's 4-2.
But as I said, it doesn't matter how you get there. Sure, we elevated the heart rate of 18,000 people in the building tonight. So shame on anybody if they left early, but it was -- we felt we deserved to be where we were. You know, did I think that Johnny's goal was going to end up being the game winner? No, I didn't. But you have to play the game all the way through. And I thought they caught a couple breaks, and then they get the power play. Pretty much thought we killed that off, and they make a good play to get the rebound. But I really thought -- I didn't think we ever lost control of the game.
And give Pittsburgh credit. They played loose. They played hard, and they tried to make a game of it, which they did. But I never, ever was sitting there saying this game's in trouble for us. And I think everybody on the bench thought that, and the result ended up saying the same thing.

Q. Jon, how do you make sure that you carry the energy that you had, particularly in the first two periods, over into Pittsburgh for the next game?
COACH COOPER: I don't just say it was just the first two periods because we were up 4-0, but then we gave up some goals. I thought we played a pretty solid game. Yeah, they outshot us, but they didn't out chance us a ton in the -- to be honest, if Fleury doesn't make some of the saves he made early, or if we shoot the puck on the three-on-one, two-on-one and all those chances we had, it's a different result.
I think that's where we erred a little bit is it could have been 6-0. Instead, it's 4-0. Now it's 4-1. I'm sorry. It would have been 6-1 or something like that. Fleury made a couple of nice saves for them, and it was just those multiple chances we had that we didn't cash in on. Now they got a couple chances and did cash in on it. I thought that's what made it close.
But it was our effort, our will, and as I said earlier, we just played a better game tonight. We were a determined group. Did I think ultimately it was a 4-0 game? No. But did I think we deserved to win tonight? I did.

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