“We had 422 days to think about it, but who’s counting?”
Relieving words from Tampa Bay Head Coach Jon Cooper today (Aug. 19) after his Lightning advanced to the next round in the 2020 Stanley Cup Playoffs in a comeback 5-4 overtime victory over Columbus to claim the series, 4-1.
Last year, the Prince George bench boss' team was swept out of the opening round by the Blue Jackets after taking the number one overall seed in the postseason and winning the franchise’s first Presidents Cup as regular-season champions.
This afternoon, Brayden Point played hero 5:12 into extra time to eliminate their opponents out of the Toronto bubble.
“It’s funny how the hockey gods work,” said Cooper at a news conference following the win.
“To go through what we did last year and then just get second-guessed on a lot of things we did. Then to go through the season, have the pause and everything that’s happened, then the reseeding, the new rules and still end up playing the same team, you know, it’s easy to sit up here and say ‘You wanted it now,’ but it was good to get them and get this result.”
BRAYDEN DOING WHAT HE DOES BEST 🔥 pic.twitter.com/fOGCu1nGtx
— Tampa Bay Lightning (@TBLightning) August 19, 2020
It was an eventful series for Cooper to coach as it included the fourth-longest game in NHL playoff history with Point scoring the game-winning goal as well in the fifth overtime period.
Today, the Lightning had to overcome a 4-2 deficit, after giving up four unanswered goals themselves, with 11:27 left in regulation.
Kevin Shattenkirk and Anthony Cirelli scored in the final eight minutes to wipe that out and force the overtime, eventually leading to Point’s winning tally.
The Lightning never trailed in the series, giving up Game 2 in a 3-1 loss to the Jackets before winning the next three games to punch their ticket to the Eastern Conference semi-finals.
Cooper says a lot of learning went into the last year, but he believes it was more of a mental and emotional battle to get over the hump.
“We had to grow as a team and we didn’t necessarily need to tweak how we played the game,” the soon-to-be 53-year-old explained.
“I don’t know if it was much on structure as it was between the ears, and all of us collectively, from the coaching staff all the way down, we had to be harder, we had to be better and we had to train ourselves in a little bit of a different way.”
Coach Cooper is hyped #GoBolts pic.twitter.com/hoZRzAqwJg
— Omar (@TicTacTOmar) August 19, 2020
The credit went to the players in the redemptive series-clincher, Cooper added while nabbing his 41st career NHL playoff win as a head coach.
This included goaltender Andrei Vasilevskiy, who started in all five games after losing all four to Columbus in the 2019 playoffs.
He stopped 37 of 41 shots today and averaged a .916 save percentage in the opening round.
Cooper is the only hope for the Stanley Cup to return to Prince George for a second time in three years.
He’s currently the longest-tenured head coach in the NHL and signed a three-year contract extension with the Lightning in March 2019.
Tampa Bay, who ended up as the number-two seed in the 2020 postseason after going 2-1 in the round robin, await for their next opponent to be determined.
- with files from The Canadian Press
