2015 Stanley Cup Final Post-Game 5 Transcript - (TBL - Coach Cooper) Our Coverage Sponsored by Bergen Linen
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Chicago - 2
Tampa Bay - 1
An interview with:
COACH JON COOPER
Q. Do you have any update on Kucherov, how big of a blow was it to lose him early in the game?
COACH COOPER: I do not have an update on Kuch. Actually I thought he was coming back. I just got word he wasn't going to come back.
I don't know. He'll be evaluated probably tonight and tomorrow.
As for the second part, naturally he's a point-per-game guy in these playoffs. He's a big part of our offense. In a series where goals are at a premium, it's tough when you lose one of your guys.
In saying that, though, we battled hard. We got that game tied. You know, it's unfortunate we fell one short in the end.
Naturally losing a guy like Kuch, you don't want to lose guys like that.
Q. You have been in this situation before, losing Game 5s. Anything you can draw on from those past experiences to help you heading into Game 6?
COACH COOPER: I've probably overused this line throughout the playoffs. But I guess we've gone from an inexperienced playoff team to an experienced playoff team.
We've been in this position before just a month and a half ago in the Detroit series. This team has found a way. That's why we are where we are right now.
We've been in so many different situations during this playoffs, whether we've been up 3-2, or down 3-2, we've gone through this now. People can't sit here and say, the inexperienced Lightning.
I think we're the 'Gamer Lightning.' These guys have gamed out this playoffs, and I expect nothing less than Game 6 in Chicago.
Q. Do you feel like your team tonight was like a victim of bad luck in terms of Crawford turns the puck over, goes to Kucherov, misses the net, he gets hurt. Bishop loses the puck, it bounces to Sharp for a goal.
COACH COOPER: I never really looked at it that way, but in saying it that way, it does kind of suck (laughter).
This has been five one-goal games. The margin of error on both teams is minimal. You looked at what happened to Bish and Hedy today, those two guys aren't trying to make that happen. That was an unfortunate incident. Ended up in our net.
I sit and think back to Game 4, Stammer has an open net, and somehow it hits Seabrook's stick. The old cliché of the game of inches.
But we've gotten some of those breaks sometimes before. You've just got to make them. We can't sit here and say, Oh, poor us. We're the last team that's going to sit there and say that.
You make your own breaks. These guys have been gaming games out through this whole playoffs. I feel bad for them in a sense that I think they've deserved a little bit better than what we're sitting now. The one thing, we're still alive. We're not out. This is not the press conference that says we're done.
I don't know. I think there's happy days ahead for us. We got to push through this.
Q. When it came time to settle on a starting goalie, was it difficult to go with Bish?
COACH COOPER: Absolutely not. We're not here without Bish. As I said, aside from that one-in-a-million play that happened, I thought he was outstanding. He gave us every chance to win that game. We’ve got to score more than one.
Q. Did you talk to Bishop or Hedman after the first period to see what happened?
COACH COOPER: No. I'm not a big guy on dwelling on situations like that. If I look back at my two years here, that's not the only time kind of a funky goal has gone in on us.
But we talked about how we have to readjust our game because Chicago is, probably the first time in this series, they took it to us at the start of the game. But I thought we weathered the storm.
We're down 1-0 on a fluky goal, but we really haven't given them too much. That was our focus. Everything is fine, but where is our push? I thought we had a great push in the second. It was unfortunate we could only get one.
Hedy and Bish, they're the last guys I have to worry about. They've been phenomenal for us all year. They both rose to the occasion. As a team, we fell one short.
Q. These last two games, same results, one goal, yet your team looked the way Chicago looked tonight in Game 4, the way you were clogging the lanes, the way they were checking, keeping Chicago wide, away from the net. Have we settled down to this now, Game 6 and 7, where you'd like to open it up, to skate, but the game prohibits it?
COACH COOPER: I don't know. To me this series has been, expect the unexpected. Those are two exceptional hockey teams out there. The pace is really, really fast.
Yeah, you don't get here to where both these teams are if you can't check. Both teams can do that. Both teams have defensemen that can skate. It makes it harder on forwards.
It's coming down to the team that, you know, capitalizes on the break they get. They capitalized on theirs, and we didn't.
But in saying that, aside from the first period, we threw 27 shots at Crawford in the last two periods. We had looks. Just didn't go in for us tonight. The only I guess problem is, this isn't Game 4 in the season where you got, you know, 78 more to go. Now we're down to this is it. Now there's no margin for error.
As I said before, hey, we're still alive. This is not near over.
Q. Obviously no one has questioned the resilience of this group. What tells you they have another one left for one of these comebacks?
COACH COOPER: Everything. The look in their eye after this game, there wasn't head hanging. They were ticked off. You know, it's not the first time we've blown a situation here at home, gone on the road and dug our heels in. We've done this all playoffs long.
Those guys know what they're doing. If I'm going to be behind a bench and want a team in this playoffs, it's this one right here.
We're looking forward to Game 6.
Q. When you're in that situation third period, trailing by a goal, is there any thought to shortening your bench a bit more?
COACH COOPER: In regards to?
Q. Seemed there was a long stretch when Stamkos could have been out there, and he wasn't.
COACH COOPER: I don't know. You have to understand, there were long stretches in that game where there were no whistles. The pace is fast. I don't know what Stammer's minutes ended up, but I'm sure they were in the 20s.
But at some point, like, you just can't keep playing the same guy over and over because then they become infective.
But our top players are getting the minutes. It's the full 60 minutes here we have to dwell on. We can't sit here and say, I know we need that goal in the last minute, but I've learned that you keep putting the same guys out the last four minutes, by the time you got to the last two minutes, they've got nothing left.
These guys know. We know when they're ready. They tell me when they're ready to go back out. It's a team. Stammer's a huge part of this. He's trying to score like everybody else. But we can't sit here and say we're going to put one single player out there for the last four or five minutes and expect results.
He gave it everything he had. So did everybody else. We're struggling to score right now.
THE MODERATOR: Thank you.
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