NHL Peachy: 2015 Eastern Conference Finals Post-Game 7 Transcript - (TBL - Coach Cooper) Our Coverage Sponsored by Bergen Linen
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Tampa Bay – 2
New York – 0
An interview with:
COACH COOPER
Q. First of all, congratulations. We threw a lot of numbers at you guys in the last couple of days about the Rangers and their so-called mystique. It's one thing to say you can block it out. What's another thing to go out and just not listen to that but go out and take care of your business?
COACH COOPER: I don't know. We've just kind of got that group. I don't know if we're so young and dumb and don't know any better, or we've - they - it's hard to explain.
But you walk into that room, and I've watched this team get pushed against the wall, when you watch this team give up five, and five, and seven the other night. But they just answer the challenge. Every time we as a staff go in and challenge them, they respond.
And they're such a fun team to coach because they can play the game in a multitude of ways. You want to shoot it out, which our guys like to do, we can shoot it out. We want to win, want to go to the Stanley Cup Final, then you have to play "D". If you really want to do it, it's a choice.
And I look at the two games we've played in here, Game 5 and Game 7, and as a coach, I don't think we could have drawn it up any better.
They made a choice. Do you want to go to the Final or not? And this is what happened.
Q. You guys won five out of six in this building this year, and you said after Game 2 that you guys got caught up in the bright lights of Game 1, I guess. What is it about this building that kind of brought out the best in your team this year?
COACH COOPER: I'll be honest, I think it was - I'll tell you, it was here and Montreal, and we - a couple teams that we knew we were going to have to beat if we wanted to have a chance to be where we are today.
But answering your question, you shine the light bright on our guys, and they'll just put on sunglasses and walk right through it. It's unreal how they respond, and it starts with our goaltender. He gets - he's much maligned for giving up the goals he gave up in the end, but the two pivotal games that we've needed to win in this building, he shut the door.
And then it goes right to Stammer, to Fil, and the triplets, and I look at the back end. I look at Anton Stralman and Hedman, and I don't know. I'm out of words. I'm so really - I'm just so happy for them. I'm really, genuinely happy for our players, and I know how much they've worked, how much they're probably sick of listening to me. But this is a team that didn't play with each other, they played for each other, and that's why we're here.
Q. Could you address two possible turning points, in the last game at home, you guys didn't seem to give up, you kept taking the play, you got a couple of goals, a couple of late goals, and I wonder if that may have been a kind of confidence builder coming here. Also, how much was the fact that there was an extra day's rest? Did that mean anything?
COACH COOPER: Okay. Gosh, the two questions are always tough for me because I've got to remember them both. So the first one is, okay, the extra day, we needed. And everybody kind of knows what happened, but we had a flu bug that went through our team. And so when we come in the morning of Game 6 and six or eight of our guys are hooked up on IVs in the morning, and everybody's asking me why aren't guys at pre-game skate, well, things are coming out of them that shouldn't be coming out of them, and so - but that does not take away - like the Rangers beat us that night.
And then see, I already forgot the question that you asked, the first one. What was the first one?
Q. Well, the first one was how the team ??
COACH COOPER: Okay, so with that. But this comes from the regular season. It's with Carey Price as well. We had success against Price in the regular season, and we had success against Lundqvist, and it was - there was never a doubt in our guys' minds that we could score on these goalies, and I think that that helped us in the playoffs, because we did it in the regular season.
There was no - I understand -you think about, those are two of the greatest goalies, in my opinion, in our era that have ever played this game. But our guys have this attitude that we did it before, why can't we do it now? We just felt that all we need are a couple of chances and we're going to score.
And you're right, those last couple we got, when our team was - we were down and out, it was clear. But we knew we could score on them, and our big question was are we going to commit to keep it out of the net, because we just knew we weren't going to be kept down.
But I think our confidence of scoring on them in the regular season, it just came to the postseason and we just didn't stop.
Q. I know a lot's been made about your path here and there is still some work to be done. But going back quarter of a century to Hofstra out on the Island, would you have ever imagined that you'd be standing here ??
COACH COOPER: Are you aging me right now? Quarter of a century? What was the - I'm sorry.
Q. Could you have ever imagined that you would be standing here talking about getting ready to play for a Stanley Cup?
COACH COOPER: I remember going to Hofstra, and it was the end of the Stanley Cup era when they won four in a row. And here's the irony of the whole thing: So Brad Lauer who played for the Islanders at the time, he and I went to high school together, and the irony is he's on the staff of the Ducks right now. We used to go to those games, and I remember being in that building. We went to games all the time, and it's just so sad to see the building go because I loved being there and watching the games.
I remember being able to go down there. I just loved being a part of it. I don't know if that fuelled anything in me today. I never really thought about that, but you ask the question now and I just remember that feeling of being there. I never, obviously, ever thought that I'd be standing here answering that question. But maybe there is a little piece that drove me from my days there.
Q. Did you lean on Callahan, Boyle, Stralman at all or pick their brains at all to kind of get the feel of what your team was going to face when they got here?
COACH COOPER: There is no question. Some of the questions were asked this morning about - a lot of talk was about the Rangers and their records in elimination games and Hank's records and stuff like that, but I don't know. Nobody did their research on the records of the boys we brought in here.
You look at Stralman and Coburn and Carle and Boyle and all these guys, and Callahan, and they've played in these before. And when you've got that in your dressing room, it wasn't Jon Cooper making a pre-game speech to our players, it was our players making a speech to our players, and that was tonight.
So did we lean on those guys? There is no question we did. The young guys and the guys that haven't been there before, they believed. And listening to guys that have been there before, there is no better people to listen to.
