Blashill and Cooper have much in common. They're close friends who worked together and coached against each other. Their teams will be competing for the Atlantic Division title this season and meet for the first time on Tuesday in a clash of unbeaten clubs that squared off in the first round of the playoffs last season.
"I've learned a lot from Coop," Blashill said. "I'm not surprised at all by Coop's success. He's a very intelligent person. He has a great way about him. I think he has a way of commanding respect, but yet I think players still appreciate what he is.
"I don't know what a players' coach is. I know he holds his guys accountable, but they also seem to like him. They have his respect and I certainly hope that's the same here for me."
And now the reunion tour continues against Cooper, who Blashill met 15 years ago through hockey. ...
"Time flies, for sure, but him and I are probably real alike as people," Blashill said. "I guess in some ways and some ways not, he's a lot smoother than I am. We're great friends. We spent time together this summer, a couple weeks over different times golfing. He's somebody I have a great friendship with."
Blashill and Cooper first starting coaching Team Michigan at the USA Hockey Fesitval.
"I would recruit off his teams when he was at Honey Baked when he was in Junior," Blashill said. "I coached against him when I was in Indy for the two years in the USHL (Cooper coached Green Bay)."
"They're the team that won the Eastern Conference, so they're the team to beat," Detroit's Justin Abdelkader said. "They have a big target on their chests, obviously. We took them to seven games. I think we match up really well with those guys. We play similar types of hockey and systems. They skate really well. I think we're a team that skates well, too. It should be a lot of fun here, kind of a new rivalry for us."
"It's never easy to lose like we did in Game 7 and to see how well Tampa did (advancing to the Stanley Cup finals, where it lost to Chicago), it hurts that much more," Abdelkader said. "We know we're close. The season is a marathon, not a sprint. You have to maintain your level of play throughout the year, give yourself a chance in the playoffs, you hope to get home ice -- you see how important that is when it comes down to a Game 7."
Tonights outcome I feel will depend more on us than on them, if we come out playing like we should then we should win but if we start like we did against Boston I have a hard time seeing us bounce back going down 2-0 in the 1st if it happens like last night.
I aslo feel that it would be good to play Bishop, we saw in the playoffs when we had a b2b game that he wasn't very good in the 2nd one and that's because he didn't play in any b2b games (full games) last season, and with yesterday being an afternoon game he, as well as the rest of the team who haven't been great in b2b games either, have had a bit of an extra rest.
Tonights outcome I feel will depend more on us than on them, if we come out playing like we should then we should win but if we start like we did against Boston I have a hard time seeing us bounce back going down 2-0 in the 1st if it happens like last night.
I aslo feel that it would be good to play Bishop, we saw in the playoffs when we had a b2b game that he wasn't very good in the 2nd one and that's because he didn't play in any b2b games (full games) last season, and with yesterday being an afternoon game he, as well as the rest of the team who haven't been great in b2b games either, have had a bit of an extra rest.
My guess is something's wrong with Coburn. He looked completely lost for a gound chunk of last night's game.