NHL Peachy: 2015 Stanley Cup Final Media Day Transcript - Tampa Bay (GM Steve Yzerman, coach Jon Cooper) Our Coverage Sponsored by Martin's Tavern of Georgetown Est. 1933
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An interview with:
COACH JON COOPER
STEVE YZERMAN
Q. Steve, when you set about starting retooling this roster after making it to the Eastern Conference Final in 2011, did you expect the team would be able to get to the Cup Finals so quickly?
STEVE YZERMAN: No, we didn’t really set a timeline on it. I wouldn’t want to put myself in that position because I’d be held to it.
We just felt at the time we’re going to try to draft well, look to free agency where we can to try to expedite the process a little bit.
But I honestly had no time. Even if you asked me last September, I hoped to, but it certainly wasn’t necessarily planned that way.
There was no timeline at all. We were going to go through this process and hopefully get there sooner than later.
Q. Steve, a lot has been made about how much home-grown talent you have on this team. How much credit do you give player development in the minors and through drafting as to where you are now?
STEVE YZERMAN: When you look back at any team that gets to this point, any team that has any kind of long-term sustained success, it’s really true home-grown talent. It’s just impossible, even more so with the salary cap, to try to build a team to be successful over a period of time just through free agency and through trades.
You need the assets to build the team.
I think Al Murray and our amateur scouting staff have done a very good job at finding players. First of all, we’re very fortunate to start out with Steven Stamkos and Victor Hedman in the fold before we even take the job, any of us. Other people had to go through the pain of getting that first and second overall pick.
After acquiring these guys, when Jon was in Norfolk and Syracuse, Stacy Roest who runs our player development, works with these young kids, Rob Zettler now, they’ve been very patient, allowing them to develop on the ice, grow up a little bit off the ice physically, mentally mature.
We’ve been lucky. Truthfully some of the guys, Nikita Kucherov, Ondrej Palat, drafted not necessarily in the first round. You hear that a lot. If we would have known Ondrej was going to be that good, we wouldn’t have waited till the seventh round to get him.
Q. Steve, there’s a guy who worked with you for 12 years now, Julien Brisebois. What can you tell us about the chemistry between you two guys?
STEVE YZERMAN: When I took the position here in Tampa, it was important for me to have someone on my staff that really knew the CBA well. His legal background, his contract negotiation experience through salary arbitration, then with the Canadiens organization, he had all the experience and the background of things that I personally lacked.
He’s an incredibly hard worker, real professional guy, fun to be around. His importance to me is immeasurable. He’s done a great job. Won in Norfolk. Now building our team in Syracuse, creating a really good environment for our young guys to develop.
Q. Jon, what gives you the confidence that the young guys that comprise most of your team are not overwhelmed by the stage? Every stage people have wondered, they never won a playoff game, then they’re in Montréal and New York.
COACH COOPER: You want to answer this? You were doing pretty well (laughter).
The one thing about this group, we just found out more about ourselves as every round has gone on.
I think it’s going back two years. I think when Stammer went down, we really had to find out about ourselves. Players were put in positions, especially Jonathan and Palat, Killorn, that they necessarily didn’t thing they’d be in that early in their careers, all the kind of trials and tribulations we went through last year.
Eventually with the first-round sweep, it’s easy to look back now that we’re in the Cup Final, but when we were feeling really, really good about ourselves in the middle of April. Six days later, it wasn’t so good. We went into the summer with the sting of what had happened.
I think it fueled us this year. We’ve had a history of not going into these long losing streaks because of the attitude that’s in that room. It’s been pretty cool to watch them as the series has gone on.
If I’m honest, the Detroit series, when we were staring that 3-2 deficit in the face, it was, ‘Oh, wow, this is going to happen to us again.’
You could just see the attitude of the players, ‘Coach, don’t worry about this one, we’ve got this.’ And they did. That was led by ultimately Ben Bishop. Every round has given us a different challenge.
To go up three games in a round, then give it up, then have to win that. To have a chance to win at home against The Presidents Cup champs, blow that, then have to go up and win in an environment that nobody’s really won before.
Every time there’s been that little bit of adversity, we feel like we’re down and out, they come back with a knock-out punch. But that started two years ago and the attitude has not changed.
Q. Steve, can you describe what it was like for you to stay patient through a couple of losing seasons after all you knew for so many years was winning.
STEVE YZERMAN: Honestly, I wasn’t all that patient. Again, there’s no quick fixes, no real solutions. You kind of just stick with the process. Really trying our best to hang on to your draft picks, try to make good choices, then give them time to develop.
It’s really what we’re trying to do. You’re always constantly looking at different ways to expedite the process, whether it be through a trade, free agency, whatnot.
Again, I go back to having Stamkos, Victor Hedman, two young players, to build around. Then you’re getting a sense, we have Tyler Johnson, Ondrej Palat, these players might be pretty good players in the NHL. Kucherov down the line, hoping to get him into here to play.
We have to be patient. It’s not like I could go out to free agency, pluck out a couple good wingers, defensemen. They’re just not out there.
I don’t think there’s any other way than to be patient and allow your young guys to develop, allow your scouts to do their job, and Coop in the American League to work with these players. I didn’t know any other way.
Fortunately with Jeff Vinik, Tod Leiweke understood, we know what’s going on, we’ll be patient with this group. We’ll get there at some point. Again, I don’t think there’s any other way to do it.
Q. Jon, Steve Stamkos, his leadership qualities, he provides a lot of offense, but can you give us a bit of a sense for the other ways in which he’s a well-rounded leader other than just producing points.
COACH COOPER: Well, in my brief two years in the league, it’s weird because I’ve been through three captains. I watched the progression, a very short time with Vinny when he was here, I finished out the end of the year. The captain takes the leadership. There’s other leaders in the room. Hockey is such a respectful game. We had Marty St. Louis waiting in the wings, but he didn’t really step up to be a leader until after Vinny was gone.
You could see that Stammer had those leadership qualities, but they don’t want to step on those other guys’ toes. They’re there as a supporting group, but ultimately the captain is there to do his job and these guys are there to help.
When Marty departed, it was Stammer’s turn to take over. He went through process of watching the leaders ahead of him.
The one difference, where Stammer has evolved, he’s understood that I think there’s a lot of situations where he’s had to carry the load of the team. If Stammer doesn’t score, Tampa is done.
Really in this last year and a half, with our group anyway, he’s understood that we need other guys to step up. It just can’t be Stammer to do this all the time if the team is going to have success. He’s almost opened the door for Johnny, Palat, Killorn, Fil, all those guys to have success. He’s really pushed the team ahead of himself. I think ultimately that’s what a leader does. He doesn’t think of himself, he just thinks of everybody else around him.
For a guy that scored a lot of goals, has done a lot of unbelievable things in this league, Stammer pushed everybody ahead of himself. I think you’ve watched his playoff progression, especially early on when he was getting hammered when he wasn’t scoring in the Detroit series. But nobody talked about how he was playing defensively or how he was winning face-offs, how he was doing this.
He accepted different roles with the team. Ultimately that is the ultimate sacrifice. You’re saying, ‘Okay, I’ll do this, this and this for our team to win.’ He never complained about this. Just know this is part of the process, how it works. That’s what makes him a great leader.
Q. Steve, an opposing player mentioned that Tampa is becoming potentially the best destination to play now in the NHL. As you’ve gone through this evolution, did you find it easier to attract free agents? How does that change things?
STEVE YZERMAN: Well, I hope that’s true. I’m not sure that it is, but I hope it’s true.
Q. The media thinks it is.
STEVE YZERMAN: We’re trying to run a real good program. We’re trying to bring in obviously very good players, but guys with real good character that want to be a part of a winning program, to be pushed, to be challenged.
I think, number one, you have to convince agents, players, everyone that, ‘Hey, they’re for real down there, they run a really good program, it’s somewhere we can be successful.’ Ultimately sell the perks of no state taxes, nice warm winters, things like that, to push us over the top.
Ultimately players, they want to be successful. They want to go to an environment where they can be successful. Play somewhere they enjoy. Obviously, make as much money as they can. They take all those things into account.
Ultimately you have to run a good program. Guys aren’t going to want to go there if you don’t have a good program. We’re fortunate.
The biggest reason I think we signed Anton Stralman, I shouldn’t put words in his mouth, we had a huge, glaring hole in our lineup. We needed a right?hand shot defenseman. We have a pretty competitive team. A player like that can make a real difference, and he has in the first year.
Number one, they look at the opportunity. I think that was the biggest reason. As all these spots on our roster get filled up, it will be more difficult for us to convince a guy to come. They’re looking at, ‘Where am I going to play, who am I going to play with?’ It gets a little bit more specific.
Again, we have to run a good program, we’re serious about playing here. If you want to come down here, you better be ready to win. Those are the types of players we’re looking for.
Q. The Rangers series, can you talk about how your team had the ability to handle the adjustments, how you work the adjustments with the players to make sure they didn’t have too much to think about, and how you’re going to handle it going forward?
COACH COOPER: I think it’s a little bit of a mental makeup of your team. We’ve had a little bit of a rollercoaster ride in a lot of our series. I’ve said this before. We’re kind of learning on the job.
But that’s where you find out about your players. When people sit here and say Ben Bishop has given up five goals in back-to-back nights, what does Ben go out and do, he pitches shutouts. When games get big, our guys have seemed to rise to the occasion.
We can sit here and say, ‘We made this adjustment.’ You know when our adjustments were made? Regular season is an 82 dress rehearsal for the playoffs. You have to have your team ready to go when that happens. You make little tweaks here and there.
What this team has done, they bought in, believed. Now it’s when you get tested. Can those guys rise to the occasion when they get tested? They’ve passed every test.
It gives your coach an ulcer when they’re doing it, but ultimately they found a way. It’s been just a blast to be a part of this, watch the transformation, watch our leadership evolve, watch guys come out of their shells.
If I look back and talk about how many guys said Ben Bishop didn’t have any playoff experience when he came in, and now what people are saying about him, what they’re going to say about Johnson, Palat, Killorn, Kucherov, Brown, all these guys down the list, two months later, they’re kind of writing their own history.
It goes to a testament of their character, what they are as people. The job Steve has done to bring these guys in. It kind of fits the mold of the type of player we’re looking. Ultimately that’s the adjustment that’s been made.
Q. Jon, could you take us back to AHL when you first put Johnson and Palat together. What did you see with that duo chemistry-wise? Did it make your transition to the NHL easier having them here?
COACH COOPER: Well, I’ll tell you, I remember the first year in the American League, we had kind of a veteran-laden team. Guys were all over the place. Me personally, I was trying to find out about pro hockey. I was coming from junior where we practiced in the afternoon.
The funniest things you learn when you’re going to pro. But our second year, that’s when we got the influx of young guys. My thought was, Palat was in his over-age year. The decision was, ‘Are we going to send him back to junior, East Coast league, or keep him with us.’ Much to our philosophy, ‘Let’s just keep the young guys and see what we can do with them, see if we can develop them.’
They ultimately were pretty quick-skilled players. We had Richard Panik at the time. We kind of put those three guys together, we’ll leave our vets together. Ultimately some of the vets, they wanted to have vets on their line instead of these young guys, and we just put the young guys together and committed to playing them.
As it turned out, they went from rookies to stars on our team in a short time. But it was all a learning process. A lot of that was through our veteran leadership group that we had there, the Mike Angelidises, guys of that nature that helped these guys along.
For me, I had a ton of confidence in these young guys. Maybe it was because I was a rookie myself as a pro. I had this group of guys that were all rookies themselves. We just made this commitment to come up together.
Did I ever foresee I was going to be coaching in the National Hockey League, coaching the Tampa Bay Lightning? I probably couldn’t have predicted that.
But I will sit here and say I owe a lot of my success to that. To have had the opportunity to coach those guys in the minors, bring them all up at the same time last year, I think it worked in two ways.
For them, they weren’t being brought up one at a time, playing eight minutes a night, having one bad shift, then maybe not having the trust of the coach.
They got to all come up. We’d been together, so they knew my expectations and standards in the organization. They got to fail before they could succeed. I was okay with it because I know they passed that test in the American League, and I had full confidence they could do it in the National League.
It was kind of weird. I had to earn the veterans’ trust. That’s what took last year, how things evolved with our roster. I guess the long-winded answer to your question is, I’m not here without them, and potentially they’re not here as fast without myself. They’d be here, but not as fast without myself. Steve has believed in us from the beginning. This is what you have.
Q. Steve, the comparisons some have made to Jonathan Toews to you, the way you captained, led on and off the ice. What do you make of that comparison?
STEVE YZERMAN: Well, we wore No. 19. The reality is Jonathan is bigger, stronger, better. He just is. Just a tremendous all-around player. Great person. I got to meet him for the first time at the World Championships in 2007 in Moscow. He played for us right out of North Dakota. He fit on the team, was one of our best players.
Over the course of my career, my play, whatever, evolved and became through Scotty Bowman, I guess, the way he wanted our team to play, all of us became kind of more defensive-minded players, more well-rounded players.
Jonathan has been that since day one, since he came in the league. He’s a complete hockey player.
Again, he’s bigger, stronger than me. I’m not sure I could even take him in a race either. He’s probably faster. Just a better hockey player.
Q. Steve, as far as Stamkos goes, how have you seen him grow through the adversity of not being on the 2010 Olympic team, the injury, him trying to get back for Sochi, not being able to, just taking a more flexible role, being moved from center to wing?
STEVE YZERMAN: When Coop talked about it earlier, just the evolution, the maturity, the natural progression as a player. Coming in as a young guy, being respectful to the veteran players, deferring to the veteran guys as the leaders, the guys who controlled the atmosphere of the team.
He’s been here seven years, longer than any other player. Victor is six now. They’re starting to become the veterans of our team. All the things he’s gone through in his career to date, as far as a young guy coming into the league, developing as a scorer, our team getting better, doing whatever you need to do to win, going through the injuries he suffered last year, coming back from that, getting to this point here today with these younger guys coming in, being willing to do whatever he needs to do to help the team win.
He’s just really evolved. He’s gone from a young guy playing in the league to now he’s 25 years old, he’s a man, a young man, but he’s been through a lot. He’s a leader on our team. His playoff experiences are really important.
We mentioned Jonathan earlier. You grow up quicker. Unfortunately we haven’t been as strong as Chicago over the last seven years now. Stammer is getting an opportunity to be in these situations and do what’s necessary. He’s a really good character person, wants to do the right things in all situations. You get a chance to talk to him. He’s evolving as a player, evolving as a person, evolving as a leader on our team. He’s doing whatever he has to do to win.
I read a quote of his the other day. He’s having the time of his life. It’s all about winning. He’s kind of set the tone for that. Our captain, our best player, this is what we’re about. Everybody falls into line with that.
Q. Jon, what similarities do you see between Johnson and Kane? How dynamic do you expect that matchup to be?
COACH COOPER: To be honest, if I was going to compare players, Kuch would be a little bit more along the lines of what Kane is. The puck follows those guys around. It’s like they’ve got Velcro on their stick. No chance of getting it, all of a sudden they have it.
They have that ability when they’re in the scoring area that a puck can go in at any time.
Johnson’s a little bit more north/south type player, where Kuch and Kane I would say are east/west. They have more vision over the ice.
They’re all pretty fast players. But Johnson has this explosive quickness to him. The other guys have it, but in a different way. But they’re all special players. You don’t advance this far without having game-breakers. As we’ve watched in these playoffs, all three of those guys are game-breakers. When they’re on the ice, whether the score is 1-0 or 10-9, they have the ability to change a game in their one shift. Both teams are fortunate enough to have those guys.
Q. Steve, you talked about as a player your game evolving. Have you had chats with Steven about changing his style of game, becoming a leader of what needs to take place in order to win? Do you see any comparisons off the ice with the leadership of Toews and Stamkos?
STEVE YZERMAN: Knowing both players, they’re different personalities. They have a couple things really in common.
They’re really good people, very high-character guys. They’re both pretty humble. They’re confident but humble guys. There’s some comparison there. They’re different types of players.
Really for Stammer as a leader, again, I haven’t had too many conversations about changing the way he plays. We want him to be successful, you know, ‘Do what you do.’ The reality is, we’ve talked about this since I’ve been here, your best players have to be good in all facets of the game. We want our top guys out there in the last two minutes defending a one-goal lead. We want them out there when we’re behind to score that goal.
It’s about working on all the different parts of your game to make sure, we want our best players on the ice every opportunity we can.
Stammer has really figured a lot of it out along the way here. Before this playoffs, my only real message to him was, ‘We saw what we went through in four games last year.’ We kind of got smacked in the face right off the bat. Before we knew it, we were out. Our coaching staff and players have done a really good job as, hey, whatever gets thrown at us, we’ll sort it out, come back and figure it out. Through three rounds they’ve been able to figure it out. That’s not only the coaches, but the players in the room, especially the captain.
Coop mentioned about going into Detroit falling behind 3-2, going back to New York. The players have been pretty confident, pretty calm. Once they’ve gotten out on the ice for those games, you look back, early in the first period, you could say, ‘They look pretty good out there, they have a chance to win this.’ I would attribute that in particular to Stammer, but all our leaders.
Q. Steve, as a star player, a guy that could impact a moment in a game, all the great stages you played on, is it easier sitting in your chair today or is it harder as a guy that can’t actually impact the moment? Do you feel more proud for your players or when you were a player yourself?
STEVE YZERMAN: I mean, we want to win. The emotion after a win or after a loss is exactly the same. As a player, you know what, you get in playoff mode. You’re eating, sleeping, playing hockey. The game ends, you wake up the next morning, whether you’re happy, disgusted, whatever it is, you get ready for the next game.
Really my role right now is make sure lunch is ready for the guys.
COACH COOPER: I had a way better answer for that (laughter).
STEVE YZERMAN: I’m just here for support really. Really after the trade deadline, as a general manager, you make sure you’re there for support and help out wherever you can.
Much like a fan or a parent or whatever, it’s hard to watch because you really don’t have a lot of impact on a day-to-day basis. Stay out of the coaches’ and players’ way.
Again, the emotion of winning and losing, I think it’s pretty much similar. I’m 50 years old. I can’t live in the past. I enjoy this role.
THE MODERATOR: Thank you, gentlemen.
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