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NHL STANLEY CUP FINALS: BLACKHAWKS v LIGHTNING


June 3, 2015


Jon Cooper


TAMPA, FLORIDA: Game One

Chicago – 2
Tampa Bay - 1


THE MODERATOR:  Questions for coach.

Q.  Jon, obviously the way this unfolded in the third, you guys were talking about sitting back too much, being too conservative.  Experience versus inexperience.  Is that a lesson learned for your guys tonight?
COACH COOPER:  I don't know.  I think the way I'd look at the game, we didn't really give them much the entire game.  If we're going to sit here and count, yeah, did they have a little more puck possession in the third period, they did.  There's no question.
Could we have made a few more poised plays?  I suppose we could have.  But I thought we had chances to put them away.  We didn't put them away.
Once you do that, to me, that was letting them hang around.  And ultimately in the end, you know, Teravainen is a seeing‑eye single on that one.  That goal had eyes.  Give them credit.  I think we could have got that puck out.  We didn't.  Then we turned pucks over on that second one.
I thought we hung in there.  Sometimes you got to get more than one.  If you're going to give up two in a game, you should have a chance at least to win that game.  We didn't tonight.

Q.  Bishop said the same thing, that he thought it was a seeing‑eye puck.  That was pretty much the perfect game plan you had going until that puck gets in.  Other guys said you did sit back too much.  What do you think?
COACH COOPER:  Well, a lot of our game plan was we wanted to pressure them, pressure their D, pressure their forwards, not give them time and space, which I thought we did an extremely good job of.
As the third period unfolded a little bit, it was very similar to how we played the Rangers the other night, except we were a little bit more playing them down ice, where tonight in the third period we played almost a half ice game.
Against a team like Chicago, you can't let them keep coming at you the way we did.  But in saying that, I mean, reel off the grade As they had.  You know what I mean?  It's not like we're sitting there saying, Oh, my God, did they have chance after chance after chance?  They had a little bit of time of possession, but they weren't getting good‑time chances.
Vermette's is a chance, no question.  Sometimes we've been that team that's bent a little but we haven't broken.  Tonight a good team found a way to get two goals.
Could we sit here and say, We're going to hem the Chicago Blackhawks in for 60 straight minutes?  Kind of hard to do.  Nobody's found a way to do it yet.  I thought we generated some scoring chances.  Both goalies played well.  They just happened to get the extra one.

Q.  Have you seen many goals scored like the one Killorn put in there?
COACH COOPER:  It's funny, because he missed the one in the first shift that he should have had, then scored that one.
He's working for his breaks.  He generated one there.  I thought it was much deserved because he had one whale of a playoffs for us.
But you got to get more than one.  That was all we got tonight.

Q.  What do you think about Cedric Pacquette's work against Jonathan Toews?
COACH COOPER:  If I pull up the score sheet, you don't see Kane or Toews or any of those guys on it.  Ceddy, Cally, Killer or Brown on them, I thought they did a heck of a job.  You can't ask for much more than that.  They're world‑class players.  You know you can't keep them down forever.  But if we can have a defensive effort like that, it's really going to help our chances.
THE MODERATOR:  Thank you, coach.
COACH COOPER:  Thank you.

FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports




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