Speculation: 2018 Off-Season: We fell short again... now what do we do?

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Stammertime91

TBL: TEAM OF THE CENTURY
Dec 13, 2011
12,961
11,358
Tampa: NHL's Newest Dynasty
Down 3-0 going into the 3rd and you don't register a shot on net for 9 and a half minutes. Is it a coincidence everybody on this team sans Point continued to attempt a dump and chase until the end? This look like a game where the players followed the system to a fault, looked like they did what they were told until the end. Those last 4-5 minutes where everybody just looked defeated looked like the start of what could be Cooper losing the room, I've never seen a team go down like that before, they just completely stopped fighting.

This is what was so sad. The empty net goal was basically telling everybody to just screw themselves that watched all season. The less time on the clock, the less of an effort there was. It got worse as the game went on.

You can play an effective dump and chase regardless of how your opponent is playing. Two parts and it's not rocket science, the speed and placement of the dump in and the retrieval. It sounds dumb as shit even explaining it given the name but I think Tampa failed on both parts. Soft dump right to Holtby followed by retreating and not retrieving. Nobody even bothered to retrieve a puck.

Even if dumping it in isn't working, you have to start pulling their guys out. Cooper did none of that. Not only did he do nothing there, we also did nothing to stop the neutral zone. They made one pass from the back of their net and before we contested them, they got our blue line 9/10 times. 9/10 times it took us 2 or 3 failed.clearances and 2 or 3 passes just to get the center ice. By then, we dump it in and make a line change. We played such a cowering and inept brand of hockey. That was worse than our 2nd half of the year.
 

These Are The Days

Oh no! We suck again!!
May 17, 2014
34,126
19,689
Tampa Bay
Bobby Hull, Brett Hull, and Mike Bossy combined weren't gonna get pucks through that wall of players. At least not with Cooper's strategy. You can't find space that doesn't exist. You create space through strategy. That's the part that's lacking for us. You're pointing the finger at literally everything else without considering, "Hey, maybe the coach could have tried something different." Just because you can't conceive a better gameplan doesn't mean the guy getting paid a couple million per year shouldn't take a crack at it.

If I said anything else other than you're 100% right I'd be a liar. I think we have all gotten to that logic at some time or another these last few hours. So I try to see us coached differently to move our feet to open shooting lanes and force the defense to shade us. Puck on net, get the juicy rebound. A great scoring chance. It's all philosophy and it's all coachable. Maybe I just don't have any faith but I cannot possibly be mad despite how much disappointment I have. After watching the last 2 years and our debacle of trying to be a more defensively oriented team, taking to a crash the net policy whilst having bad scoring slumps up and down our line up and injury streaks that gave birth to Tampacuse jokes, I'm not gonna get tied up in knots over Cooper not trying something different. I wish I was exaggerating when I said all I can imagine is sustaining pressure and then Hedman misses his 10th shot in 3 games and the Caps content to ice it because they know we will lose the ensuing faceoff or have a one-and-done. Otherwise it's our players getting out muscled and missing scoring opportunities by a hair like Gourde did, Girardi and Stralman fumbling the puck over the blue line and Coburn cheating back several feet off the blue while his partner does the work. I know it must feel like I constantly move the burden of proof against Cooper all the time but I would not be saying these things if we had not seen it ourselves.
 

Maelmoor

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Apr 20, 2004
6,463
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Stockholm, Sweden
The coaching staff certainly are accountable but it's way too easy to just blame them. I really dislike when players can hide behind the coaches and are not accountable, it's so easy to just put all blame on the coach but several players needs to look themselves in the mirror today, the last two games wasn't just good enough.

I know I've asked it before but do we have any mental coach working for the team?
 

Stammertime91

TBL: TEAM OF THE CENTURY
Dec 13, 2011
12,961
11,358
Tampa: NHL's Newest Dynasty
If I said anything else other than you're 100% right I'd be a liar. I think we have all gotten to that logic at some time or another these last few hours. So I try to see us coached differently to move our feet to open shooting lanes and force the defense to shade us. Puck on net, get the juicy rebound. A great scoring chance. It's all philosophy and it's all coachable. Maybe I just don't have any faith but I cannot possibly be mad despite how much disappointment I have. After watching the last 2 years and our debacle of trying to be a more defensively oriented team, taking to a crash the net policy whilst having bad scoring slumps up and down our line up and injury streaks that gave birth to Tampacuse jokes, I'm not gonna get tied up in knots over Cooper not trying something different. I wish I was exaggerating when I said all I can imagine is sustaining pressure and then Hedman misses his 10th shot in 3 games and the Caps content to ice it because they know we will lose the ensuing faceoff or have a one-and-done. Otherwise it's our players getting out muscled and missing scoring opportunities by a hair like Gourde did, Girardi and Stralman fumbling the puck over the blue line and Coburn cheating back several feet off the blue while his partner does the work. I know it must feel like I constantly move the burden of proof against Cooper all the time but I would not be saying these things if we had not seen it ourselves.

It does seem like you're constantly moving the burden of proof off Cooper because you are. You cant play perimeter hockey and "move your feet" When the caps were tighter man on man than flies on shit. They mirrored our every move. Our puck movement was negated 5v5 and the only time 5v5 we looked good was when we cycled, but we cycled ourselves into submission and lost the puck. Caps basically waited us out and ended up with the puck due to us giving it up or passing it too much. Cooper shot out one game plan across 7 games. His TWO noticeable adjustments were over the top dumps across the neutral zone and completely caught them off guard in game 3. Game 7 was pulling a forward up high. Who does that? Who in their right mind when you need havoc pulls a forward up high? So Stralman can streak down low or Palat can TRY to hit the net from the blue line? Rewatch the game some time. It's laughable that was his adjustment. It was so dumb the more I think about it the more I'm enraged. It did nothing. Their sticks were so active we ended up exposing a defenseman cause we turned it over. When we threw it low, we had one lwss forward down low cause Gummy Cooper thought pulling a forward to thr blue line 5v5 was a good idea.

I don't even think Boucher would have done something that dumb. It was the most idiotic thing I've seen in a long time. That was his white flag.
 
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DFC

Registered User
Sep 26, 2013
46,844
22,694
NB
So, somehow I just now, for the first time, saw the Sharks signed Evander Kane to 7x7. And now I don't feel quite so bad about tonight.
 

LightningStrikes

Champa Bay Lightning
Nov 24, 2009
26,063
9,772
  • new coaching staff
  • strip the C off Stamkos
  • bye Johnson
  • bye Killorn
  • bye Callahan
  • bye Kunitz
  • bye Sustr, KK
  • promote Sergachev
  • promote some AHLers
  • get another defender to help relieve Stralman, Coburn who are on a decline

...just off the top of my head. Enough of this BS. Turn a series from 0-2 to 3-2 only to not show up for two elimination games (0 goals ffs). Get by with the worst PK and team defense out there. No ES hustle whatsoever. Allowing tons of shots against while hoping Vasy will keep standing on his head while hung out to dry. Great game plan. Great execution. Meanwhile the team looks like a bunch of zombies in a time when they supposedly sooo "hungry and pissed".
 

Volodya Krutov

Lost Cosmonaut
Jan 18, 2012
8,135
1,036
Can't see how this group can get the job done, they'll never get a better opportunity. Either the coaching or players, but something needs to change, maybe both. I'm not so sure all responsibilities lie with Cooper tho. What this series showed me is that this line-up is not as fierce against a true Cup contender than it looks on paper. Too many passengers, brutal lack of consistency, they just didn't bring their ****. Cooper's system might be at fault somewhere too, but it still went to 7 games despite no sense of urgency from the skaters until game 3. And let's be ******* real once & for all :
If you need a motivational speech from your coaching staff in the Conference Finals to get you fired up, there's something wrong with your work ethic.

That being said, I'm for giving Cooper one last chance, but we need to make a slight retool. I see the expanded core as :
Vasi
Hedman
Kuch
Stamkos
Gourde
Sergachev
Cirelli
Point
Any other players should be available at the right price, even Palat, who is probably my favorite player, he's not capable to be a difference maker when things get serious. So keep some, trade some, but this group has run its course.
 
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Volodya Krutov

Lost Cosmonaut
Jan 18, 2012
8,135
1,036
Washington beat us by sticking to a structure that trumped ours. We kept crashing into the same wall over and over and over, playing a dump-and-cycle game they were more than ready for. I don't know what the answer to that is, but I know Cooper didn't have it.

It's extremely hard to revolutionize your system overnight tho. Any system has its strength & weakness, execution matters a lot tho. Washington clogs the NZ when they get the lead, and one way to beat it is to dump & chase.

But beyond that system not working, what sticks out to me is that our small forwards had a terrible time winning those puck battles against the likes of Orpik & Washington's size & physicality in general, they have some big, strong dudes over there.

That's the main reason we couldn't establish any possession game IMO. I'm not giving Cooper a free-pass, but I think the profile of our forwards is a bit redundant between Palat, Kucherov, Johnson & Gourde, they're top 6 players that must be key contributors in big games, but they clearly struggle along the boards against the strong guys. I wouldn't mind getting slightly bigger in the top 6.
 

DownIsTheNewUp

Registered User
Mar 27, 2017
2,221
5,471
Tampa
I give Stamkos credit for the first few games, where I think he was by far our best player. I don't think he was awful tonight, but I think it's setting the bar pretty low for an 8.5m player to not expect him to come up big once in a while. So, for me, it's a culmination of his entire playoff career. It would just be really nice if he'd be "the guy" for once in a big game.

Like Ovy tonight. He was a beast. And he's been a beast throughout these playoffs. Stamkos has never had a playoff run anything close to that, and, given his salary and, yeah, his reputation, it's hard not to be disappointed when he always feels like a secondary scorer rather than the guy we're leaning on to get it done.

In one statement you say he was by far our best player for a few games, the next statement you say you want him to come up big every once in a while. He can't be our best player every game in a series, nobody ever is. He was on a 6 goals in 7 games streak before this entire team went ice cold the last three games. When he slows down, somebody else has to step up and nobody did.
 

Fabiobest

Italian Florida Man
Feb 4, 2017
8,639
4,370
Turin, Italy
Hi everyone!
  • I think it's a good idea to make some change in our coaching staff. (Bowness? Cooper...?)
  • Bye bye Kunitz.
  • Bye bye Budaj.
  • Trade one of them: Killorn, Johnson and Miller.
  • Start to think to resign Kucherov and Point who are our future.
  • Callahan... 33 yo, 6 mln for a 4th liner...trade if it's possible.
  • Bye bye Sustr.
  • Looking for some good AHLer (Volkov for example...Foote... and many others).
  • Bye bye to one between Girardi and Coburn: they've big contract that expires next season.
  • CHEER THE TEAM.
:bolts
 

T REX

Registered User
Feb 28, 2013
10,906
8,249
Cooper is an eternal bridesmaid and has taken this team as far as he can. He has Peter Principled out. He's done. Two times he has had 3-2 leads only to blow them.

Cooper is Dungy 2.0 with the Bucs.

This season is a FAILURE and so is Poop.
 
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T REX

Registered User
Feb 28, 2013
10,906
8,249
Stammer - SIX GAME 7'S

ZERO POINTS

Pathetic. That's your cpt and the face of your franchise. Zero points. Get your damn head out of your ass dude.
 
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HoseEmDown

Registered User
Mar 25, 2012
17,452
3,681
ES goals these playoffs

Point 6
Palat 6
Kucherov 5
Connolly 4
Johnson 3
Killorn 2
Cirelli 2
Callahan 2
Miller 1
Paquette 1
Stamkos 1
Gourde 0
Kunitz 0

One of them is not like the others.
 
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These Are The Days

Oh no! We suck again!!
May 17, 2014
34,126
19,689
Tampa Bay
It does seem like you're constantly moving the burden of proof off Cooper because you are. You cant play perimeter hockey and "move your feet" When the caps were tighter man on man than flies on ****. They mirrored our every move. Our puck movement was negated 5v5 and the only time 5v5 we looked good was when we cycled, but we cycled ourselves into submission and lost the puck. Caps basically waited us out and ended up with the puck due to us giving it up or passing it too much. Cooper shot out one game plan across 7 games. His TWO noticeable adjustments were over the top dumps across the neutral zone and completely caught them off guard in game 3. Game 7 was pulling a forward up high. Who does that? Who in their right mind when you need havoc pulls a forward up high? So Stralman can streak down low or Palat can TRY to hit the net from the blue line? Rewatch the game some time. It's laughable that was his adjustment. It was so dumb the more I think about it the more I'm enraged. It did nothing. Their sticks were so active we ended up exposing a defenseman cause we turned it over. When we threw it low, we had one lwss forward down low cause Gummy Cooper thought pulling a forward to thr blue line 5v5 was a good idea.

I don't even think Boucher would have done something that dumb. It was the most idiotic thing I've seen in a long time. That was his white flag.

What would a better adjustment have been? Sergachev is the lone capable shooter we have that can get a puck to the net from the blue line and move with it. Other than a rookie who is not ready for 20 minutes a game, who was gonna take those shots? Asking someone like Coburn to move his feet while cycling is like asking to develop a superpower. Give me a name amongst our blue line that was going to be responsible for starting a shooting gallery like Orlov and Carlson. I promise I'm not trying to be oppositional or antagonistic. I want to see where you're going with this because I see 5 defensemen who can't get the puck on net. I'm no coach but if you saw a way that works that I didn't I'll be on the Fire Coop train by the end of your post. The way I see it, adjusting to swap a forward in the place of someone like Stralman (who handles the puck like it's a goddamn grenade) was the only solution we had left to try. You're right, our zone entries were maddening but bad news.... we can't really utilize the stretch pass for quick breakouts and we don't have enough guys with enough toughness and speed built for a Mike Sullivan dump and chase. So many times this year we've seen Cooper go with a "take your structure and stick it" game plan and it worked. The problem is you can only try it so many times in a 7 game series. You and everyone else criticizing him for not adjusting are 100% right. But I'm just under the impression that it would not have worked all the same. I watched us fail for 2 years to try to win games with defense with guys like Boyle and Filppula and dear Lord we were HORRIBLE with it. Like I said I'm not gonna get tied up in knots over it. I'm not gonna get mad that a team who sucks at dump and chase was not coached to dump and chase and crash the net was not coached to play that way when what we did got us 3 wins although they were via heart attack. I think we could have tried to adjust but I don't think it would have worked out too well.
 

HoseEmDown

Registered User
Mar 25, 2012
17,452
3,681
Stammer - SIX GAME 7'S

ZERO POINTS

Pathetic. That's your cpt and the face of your franchise. Zero points. Get your damn head out of your ass dude.

I believe he has 0 points in his last 10 elimination games. He's like the Patrick Ewing of hockey, good regular season guy but the team is better off without him.
 

These Are The Days

Oh no! We suck again!!
May 17, 2014
34,126
19,689
Tampa Bay
It's extremely hard to revolutionize your system overnight tho. Any system has its strength & weakness, execution matters a lot tho. Washington clogs the NZ when they get the lead, and one way to beat it is to dump & chase.

But beyond that system not working, what sticks out to me is that our small forwards had a terrible time winning those puck battles against the likes of Orpik & Washington's size & physicality in general, they have some big, strong dudes over there.

That's the main reason we couldn't establish any possession game IMO. I'm not giving Cooper a free-pass, but I think the profile of our forwards is a bit redundant between Palat, Kucherov, Johnson & Gourde, they're top 6 players that must be key contributors in big games, but they clearly struggle along the boards against the strong guys. I wouldn't mind getting slightly bigger in the top 6.

Well said. It's time to become more versatile. I'd start with finding a better alternative to Johnson. I'm sick and tired of him disappearing every time we need to put Palat somewhere else.
 

IceManCat

#TheFloridaPanthers
Jul 13, 2006
6,087
2,551
The Rat Den
According to a personal source with the Lighting org. Stamkos had a hurt knee and wasn't playing at anywhere near 100%
 

AlphaCatalyst

Elite Fan
Jun 27, 2007
14,921
7,126
Calgary
Torts says hello. Bring back the intensity.

you think we played too Safe and that Is the cause of our Death

we played Good, and that will not cut it at this point of the year. that Is The reason we are no longer playing. our Enemy was playing to defensively when we should Of used our skill more and we might have ended up having a Great season instead of this disappointment.
 
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God King Fudge

Championship Swag
Oct 13, 2017
6,308
6,793
Bolt prospects said it right.

The Lightning organization now finds itself at a bit of a crossroads. It was the best of times, having been to the Eastern Conference Final or further three of the past four season, but it was also the worst of times having come up dry in the pursuit of a championship. Critical questions need to be asked throughout the building on Channelside, beginning with the question of whether this team is in danger of lapsing into the kind of "elite mediocrity" teams like the Caps and Sharks have been trapped in for what seems like a decade. No one can deny that Tampa Bay is a model franchise built to have more deep playoff runs well into the foreseeable future. But, are they constructed to win championships? Are some of the mainstay players on the roster now tainted with the stench of multiple postseason failures to get all the way over the hump? The coaching staff?
 

Obviously

Registered User
Dec 4, 2013
1,616
201
Personnel changes need to be made before blowing up the roster. Let's not forget how impressed we were with the offense that Mcdonagh brought for the first 4 games he was here. Do we think it just magically disappeared? Sergachev was also relegated to a purely defensive role. Hedman isn't a threat because all of his shots are wide, might as well just be a dump. The Caps dared us to beat them from the point and we didn't adjust to do so, instead we just had them pinch more when our offense dried up. If they wanted to play the points lax with the purpose of just shot blocking then at some point in the series we could have just taken a period of peppering their wingers with some slappers, make them earn it or at least think twice. Not a permanent solution but literally anything other than our current dump behind the net would have been better.
 
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ArmaHedman

Registered User
Nov 30, 2006
324
10
Sarasota, FL
Disappointed to say the least, I really thought this was our year! Although after our performances in each of the rounds I did not like our chances vs Vegas, but damn would have liked to have tried it anyway.

Disappointed in Stammer and Kuch, especially Kuch, already knew Stammer tended to not show up post season. If you take away their PP points it is not pretty. Even with the PP points compare Stammer's impact compared to other captains or players - PK, Ovi etc. He is just not the player he was before he broke his leg in Boston.

Like most on here, I think we were just out coached once again. I feel like in most cases we are outgunned in the coaching position. We have won because of our talent, but in this series especially Vasy basically single handedly got us to game 7. I would like to see Cooper go, but only with a quality replacement. Is Quinville done in Chicago? Could we pry him out of there? Don't think Mike Sullivan is leaving the Berg anytime soon, but he would be another one. Torts would be good too, he has a short shelf life and we have a short window so that might just work out.

Barring a quality head coach move, which I don't think Stevie Y makes anyway, even if Q was available, I would like to see all of the assistants go. We need some need blood to work on the D and our PK was terrible all year, so Lauer can go.

Will be interesting to see which players had injuries etc.

Is it October yet????
 
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