Cooper Says Tampa Bay Needs To Battle, Get Some Puck Luck To Win Game 6
By Ashley Dunkak
@AshleyDunkak
DETROIT - At his pregame media session Monday, Tampa Bay Lightning head coach Jon Cooper did not back off his comments labeling the Detroit Red Wings the best in the NHL at disguising interference penalties. He did, however, absolve the officials of responsibility and insist his comments were not a plea for more penalty calls with Game 6 coming up.
"There's eight playoff series," Cooper said. "I'm sure what goes on in our series is going on in the rest of them. Fight through it, boys. And the guys in stripes could call one. Other than, got to fight through it. It's the playoffs.
"They're a savvy team," Cooper added. "They've got a lot of guys who've been here before. They're taking up space. There's no room in this series, I think either way. This is - it has nothing to do with the refs not making calls. If the refs wanted to, it could be 25 penalties a side."
To this point, the Red Wings have handled the higher level of physicality better than the Lightning, and Cooper suggested Tampa Bay needs to match that grit in order to get legitimate scoring chances.
"If you're going to avoid contact, you're not going to get to the net, and that's where we have to get," Cooper said. "If you want to get there, contact's going to happen. I think for us, in some of these situations, we need a puck to go off somebody's butt in the net or something like that. I've watched a few goals on their side, pucks go off of legs, one's gone off [Pavel] Datsyuk's leg when he wasn't even looking, one's gone off [Tomas] Tatar's. We need one of those to go in for us, and in order for that to happen, you've got to create traffic.
"You've got to go to those dirty areas, regardless if they're trying to hold you up," Cooper continued. "And it's not a situation where you're going in trying to draw a penalty. Go in there determined. That's what has to happen. And we've got to get our shots through. We don't need anybody else doing our work for us. We've got to do it ourselves."
The Red Wings have shut out the Lightning, the NHL's highest-scoring team in the regular season, in two of the five games this series. Tampa Bay averaged 3.2 goals per game in the regular season. In this series, the team's average is 2.0.
"If they're frustrated, they're not really showing it," Red Wings defenseman Kyle Quincey said. "In their body language and stuff, they're being professional, they're not really showing it if they are, but yeah, I can see how they're used to scoring a lot of goals and we've done a good job defensively of taking that away, so I can see how they would be."
If the Red Wings win Monday, the season is over for the Lightning, and everyone understands the stakes.
"In the playoffs, you should always play desperate," Johnson said. "Especially tonight, the back's against the wall. It's pretty much do or die, so I think if you don't have desperation in your game, something's wrong."
The Lightning have struggled to score in each of the past three games. The Red Wings shut Tampa Bay out in Game 3, held the Lightning scoreless for the first 54 minutes of Game 4, and shut Tampa Bay out again in Game 5. Cooper expressed confidence that a goal will put the Lightning back on track, however.
"It was like Game 4 when [Tyler Johnson] got that first goal and made it 2-1 with five minutes left," Cooper said. "You could just see it was a relief for our guys to score one, and so we just need one of those to go in for us. That group that's in there right now, they've got a determination about them, they've always had it, especially after games we've lost, and I expect nothing less tonight."
For their part, the Red Wings do not plan on lifting their collective foot off the gas pedal.
"I've said it all along - each game of the series, you've got to be better if you're going to have success," Red Wings head coach Mike Babcock said Monday. "Execution's so important. Being under control emotionally is so important, and then playing real hard and being real determined. All you got to do is watch the other series, and you'll see what's going on. You've got to be determined to win at this time of the year."