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Greg Wyshynski, ESPN
Inside the Tampa Bay Lightning‘s gym, there’s a team photo taken at the 2022 Stadium Series in Nashville. Every time coach Jon Cooper sees it, he marvels at how much can change in the span of two years.
“Of the 23 guys in that picture, there are only eight left. That’s a big turnover,” Cooper told ESPN’s “The Drop” podcast this week.
That roster turnover was only one challenge the Lightning faced this season. There were injuries to goalie Andrei Vasilevskiy, defenseman Mikhail Sergachev and others. There was the grind of the Eastern Conference playoff race, which saw the Lightning in unfamiliar territory as a bubble team.
But the Lightning are in a playoff seed in the final weeks of the season, heading into Saturday’s “Battle of Florida” showdown (6 p.m. ET, ESPN+/Hulu) against the Florida Panthers, their burgeoning rivals who have the best record in the NHL this season.
We asked Cooper about that rivalry, the Lightning’s resilient season, Nikita Kucherov‘s MVP case, as well as whether Cooper wants to coach the Canadian Olympic team and whether he’d ever refuse to leave the bench like John Tortorella did after an ejection this week. Note: Some answers have been edited for clarity.
The latest edition of the Battle of Florida is this weekend. You’ve coached the Lightning since 2013 …
Cooper: March, 2013. So it’s coming up soon on the anniversary date.
That was when you made the jump from Syracuse in the AHL. You had a bunch of players you coached there on the Lightning, like Nikita Kucherov, Tyler Johnson and Ondrej Palat. What were they called again?
Cooper: “The Cooper Troopers.”
This must be like reading about Maurice Richard to people who became NHL fans in the last few years.
Cooper: [Laughs] It probably does.
The point is that you were there to see this rivalry with the Panthers grow over the years. How has it changed in your tenure?
Cooper: Well, to be honest, we both probably weren’t very good in the beginning. And then we made that surprise run to the 2015 Stanley Cup Final. Florida was, at the time, struggling to make the playoffs. So there was never really kind of that budding rivalry early.
Then when [GM] Dale Tallon and [coach Joel] Quenneville came in and they restructured, and now with [GM] Bill Zito and [coach] Paul Maurice, that team started to get good as we happened to be at the peak. It’s been a battle. And I’m telling you, it’s so much fun to play against those guys. We’ve met them a couple times in the playoffs and fortunately for us we’ve come out on the right end.
I don’t know how this season’s gonna play out for anybody. They’ve had some little bit of heartache in the last few years in the playoffs and they just keep coming back and coming back. At some point, they’re gonna be knocking right at the door like they were last year.
It’s funny how that works. They’re down 3-1 in a playoffs series and [Brad] Marchand had a breakaway [chance] to end it. Instead, they just sneak through the President’s Trophy champs, and I don’t think they’ve looked back. They haven’t stalled at all. They’re a well-constructed team, they’ve been through the battles. They’ve got all these other teams to play, but they for sure circle us on the calendar, as do we.
The Lightning have gone through adversity this year. First there was the injury to goalie Andrei Vasilevskiy…
Cooper: How old is that?! Like, that feels like another season ago, but it was this actual season that he missed the first 25 games.
You overcame that, changes to the lineup from last season and other things to be in a playoff spot. What was the key factor in that success?
Cooper: I gotta give a lot of credit to our core players. One in particular is Nikita Kucherov, who for my money has been the best player in the league. He’s been the guy that’s carried us on both ends of the ice. There’s a reason our power plays is No. 1 in the league right now — a big part is because of him.
Every year’s different. They’re so hard to explain. The years you don’t make the playoffs, the years you win Stanley Cups, you’re just faced with so many challenges.
He led our last Awards Watch, but state your case for Nikita Kucherov as MVP.
Cooper: This is what I would ask. If you took the top five to 10 players in the league, and if they were to flip on the TV and all 32 teams are playing, and you got to flip in a game and watch one team play, my money would be on the Tampa Bay Lightning. Not to see Jon Cooper coach — unfortunately — but to see Nikita Kucherov play.
I think he garners immense respect from everybody in the league and a lot of the best players. I think that’s your biggest compliment and why I think he should win MVP.
What did you make of him at the NHL All-Star weekend, with the skills competition thing?
Cooper: All I know is that when he played in the game, he played hard and tried to help his team win. The skills competition is about showing off skill, but in the end, it’s a lot about fan participation. And if anybody made the fans participate, it was definitely Kuch [laughs].
Excellent point. We mentioned the playoffs, we mentioned injuries. What are the chances that Mikhail Sergachev could come back for you in the postseason?
Cooper: I don’t wanna say never is never, but it’s a significant injury. That was a tough night at the Garden. It’s fun to see him walking around and stuff, but for him to get back into game shape, I wouldn’t expect to see him until training camp next year, unfortunately for us.
A couple of coaching questions for you. Have you ever considered pulling your goaltender in overtime like Wild coach John Hynes did the other night against the Predators?
Cooper: Yes. You’re always prepared for different situations. But I don’t know if people understood the downside of doing that.
I mean, it does seem like there’s an upside and there definitely was — hell of a call by Hynes to do that. But the points are so valuable in this league. We’re not like soccer where you get three points for a win and zero for a loss. So there’s those big gaps, like every point is valuable. To have that potential ability to lose a point, that’s what makes it hard to pull the goalie in overtime. So it’s been considered, but I just have not done it. I’ve not done it yet.
We’re only like soccer in terms of embellishment and diving.
Cooper: Some guys, yes. Most guys, no.
But I thought it was a great call. Puck went in the net, so it was super cool. They need points and they can’t settle for “ones.” They took a swing at it and they hit it and good for Hynesy. It was a hell of a call.
The other coaching thing I wanted to ask you: You are obviously polite with the referees. Never a problem with them. All of your communication with the zebras is always very positive…
Cooper: Alright, I see where this is going.
But if you were ever kicked out of the game, did you ever consider not leaving like John Tortorella didn’t leave the other night?
Cooper: I was the opposing coach when that happened to Torts this week. It’s hard to watch because you don’t see what’s going on. So I had no idea. Honestly, I had no idea Torts got kicked out. I thought he just got two minutes. I didn’t get to see anything that had happened prior until after the game.
The irony of it was that the same ref that ejected Torts ejected me in that same arena a couple years ago. It was the only time I’ve been ejected in league. And honestly, when I got ejected, I didn’t know right away that I was kicked out. I had to look at my assistant. I was like, “Did he throw me out?”
There’s a little bit of embarrassment behind it. I’m like, “Oh my God, thank goodness it wasn’t an arena where I had to walk the ice to leave [laughs].” Like, at least I could just tuck in behind the bench and get off.
I guess [not leaving] would depend on the circumstance. If I wanted to leg it out a little bit longer and get my point heard. But when it happened to me, I left with my tail between my legs.
So you weren’t trying to be like a baseball manager and, like, bump the umpire to get your team going?
Cooper: Let me say this. It was actually a similar circumstance because we were behind in the game. There’s things you do … like, I know there’s times I do a goalie challenge when I know I’m losing it. I’m doing it to have my goalie’s back and to give him a chance, knowing full well on the bench and saying, “We’re gonna lose this, boys, and we’re gonna have to kill this penalty off.”
In the playoffs against Columbus in Game 5 [in 2020], we were down by two goals in the third period. I challenged their goal for goalie interference. There’s 10 minutes left in the game. We killed it off and then we ended up coming back and winning that game and winning the series. Now, I’m not saying it was because of that, but there are times coaches do things to hopefully help the mental game with some of the guys.
As for me getting kicked out? You try and motivate your team a bit. But we still lost the game.
What’s that behind you? A Team Canada jersey?
Cooper: That was world championships in 2017. And we went to a shootout in the final and lost in the shootout to my boy Victor Hedman and Henrik Lundqvist.
Happens to the best of us.
Cooper: We got to the shootout and I was like, “Oh, this could be tough.”
We’ve got the Four Nations tournament next year and the Olympics in 2026. You were set to coach Team Canada in Beijing before COVID ruined everything. Do you want to coach Team Canada at either of these events?
Cooper: [Laughs] Anytime you have an opportunity to coach Team Canada, I’m first in line to raise my hand, as with every coach that’s a proud Canadian.
It was a stinger not being able to go in in in 2022 because it’s so much fun. International tournaments are great. You’re getting to coach, like, the best players.
I remember back with Team North America [in the 2016 World Cup of Hockey] and just watching all the best players in the league get together and play in a tournament. The Olympics are surely a different animal, but it’s always cool that I can sit back and say, “Hey, you know, I had Auston Matthews and Connor McDavid and Nathan MacKinnon.” You just go down the list.
So doing these international events is so much fun, but it makes you proud as a Canadian to have that opportunity. Who knows what’s gonna happen moving forward? But I know whoever it is going to do a heck of a job for us.