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NHL EASTERN CONFERENCE FINAL: CAPITALS vs LIGHTNING

May 18, 2018

Jon Cooper

Washington, D.C.: Practice Day

THE MODERATOR: Questions, please.

Q. Coming back, winning those two, does it feel like a new lease on life, fresh start in the series?
JON COOPER: I mean, let's be honest. Being down 0-2 at home, you're on life support. That's basically what it was. The guys found a way to claw themselves out.

But it doesn't matter. The series is tied at 2-2, doesn't matter how you got there. It's still 2-2. Pretty sure everybody knows how pivotal Game 5 is. I'm sure it's going to be no different in this series.

Q. Have we seen your team's best?
JON COOPER: I think we played well at sometimes in this series. Have we responded to situations? You go down, tough environment, four minutes into a game, all we did was take over the next 10 minutes, get the lead. Then it doesn't look like we played that well in the last seven minutes, but we did. Peeled off all those penalties.

You look to come out of that period 2-1, I would say we had a pretty good period. So there's the good. Second is the bad. Then you look at the third period, it was probably kind of a wash until we got the lead. We were fine.

I don't think we played consistent. That's probably the big thing. Let's string together three periods, not one here, take one off, one here. That's what we have to be better at.

Q. (Question about the moment shifting.)
JON COOPER: I don't know. Seems like in this series the pressure shifts on the home team. Clearly home ice advantage has been a disadvantage in this series.

Now, in saying that, I'd rather have Game 5 at home. I believe we'll be a different team here than we showed up in Game 1 and 2.

Q. Do you have to address that to your players, the fact you need to play better at home?
JON COOPER: Well, if I have the answers, you know (laughter). I don't think you can ask Barry for answers either. For me, we just can't treat -- now that we've gone through four games in this series, why are we treating the home game differently than the road game, our preparation, what we're doing? That's how we're going to approach that. We're going to approach things like we're on the road.

The one thing is, you go home, be with your families. But their needs and wants are different than ours. We all want the same thing to happen in the end. Our guys are the ones that are in the trenches. I think being with the family and everybody, that's important. They're our backbone. I can hardly wait to get home and see my kids. Then it's back to work. You get to enjoy that little bit of time. It's the part of life that gives you energy, then you have to take it out on the work, take it out on the Washington Capitals. I just know we're a different group coming into Game 5 mentally than we were in Game 1.

Q. Killorn, how had he been playing before that goal?
JON COOPER: Alex is an important part of our team. He's been an important part in many playoff series for us. Would we have liked a little bit more production out of that line? There's no question. The one thing, you can sit here and say production, production, production. Talk to me how they've been on the penalty kill. He's done really well. Some of it doesn't always add up in the point total.

But if I'm going to pick apart a little part of his game, he's not shooting the puck enough, which he's got a shot, got a great release, he's just not getting them through the net. It was only a matter of time for him. The kid's got talent. You can see that last night. That's a goal-scorer's goal. It's been good to see.

I don't judge our guys on the points. He's been playing really well for us.

Q. That anger you talked about after Game 2, has your team harnessed that with these two wins?
JON COOPER: I don't know if 'harnessing' is the word. Was it anger? Was it a little bit embarrassment? Was it eye opening? Got to remember, there's another team out there, they're going after the same thing you are.

To me, it was just a mindset, our focus. I think Game 3 went a lot of miles to help us. Did we like the result of Game 4? Yes. Did we like our complete performance? Probably not. But we feel like we have a formula to win the series.

Q. What is the key to keeping the guys optimistic after the first two games?
JON COOPER: It's the same guys that put you down 0-2, the same guys that pulled you out of 0-2. You can sit here and Monday morning quarterback everything that's gone on, their mindset. It's too bad that we had to go 0-2, but it shows a lot of guts by that team to come out with a Game 3 and 4.

As I said before, it's 2-2. Now it doesn't matter how we got here.

Q. So much talk about special teams. You can put X's and O's all you want about where Ovi likes to stand, Stammer. Is it easier said than done to keep those guys from being as effective as they are?
JON COOPER: You can see our power play has been pretty good in this series, so has theirs. Didn't get one last night. Then you have just weapons all over the place, which both teams do. You can prescout, prescout, prescout, they're still going to get you somehow. Just look at some of the goals these guys have scored. Not a lot of guys in the league can do that. That's probably why these two teams are where they're at right now.

But you are just playing with fire if you're keep taking penalties against these guys. We ran into it last night. We can't continue to do that because they're too good.

Q. On a coaches note, you'd rather be here than where you were 12 months something. The experience at the Worlds of coaching Team Canada, they're going through what they are right now, did that change you as a coach, as a person? Are you a different coach than you were 12 months ago?
JON COOPER: I don't know if 'change' is the word. It helped me immensely. I can go back as far as sit here and say my experience in the World Cup in 2016 as an assistant, just kind of being around the other coaches then, how things are done, but to be able to run your own show when you go to Worlds, surround yourself with Gerard, Sean Burke, Scottie, all those guys, Ron Hextall, it was amazing for me.

Not only that, then you throw in Scheifele, McKinnon, Giroux, you go down the list, you learn from those guys. It was a wonderful experience. When I came back from Worlds, I know I'd taken a step in my coaching career. I think that's helped. Whatever has happened since then, it's really propelled me to be better.

Q. Do you take a sneak and see what's going on over there?
JON COOPER: For sure. I watch it all the time. I love the tournament. As I said, Hockey Canada was so good to me, affording me that opportunity. I truly believe if I've done anything well this year, that helped me. I'm pulling for those guys. Especially O'Reilly scored that goal the other night, he was a big part of us at Worlds last year. I have a lot of time for that kid. I was so happy he scored.

Anyway, pretty excited for the guys.

Q. You have struggled to get a lot of pucks to (indiscernible) this series. How do you have him work harder?
JON COOPER: A lot of that, too, is just momentum. The big issue for us is not shooting the puck enough. I think Washington has done a good job, they'll throw pucks at the net and go get the rebound. We're looking a little bit more, Let's get it, move it around, possession time, let's throw it behind the net. All of a sudden we're out of the zone. It kind of gets a little contagious, Let's make their goalie have to work.

We've done it on special teams obviously, but we need to do it a little bit better five-on-five.

FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports

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