When Jon Cooper was running through the list of Tampa Bay Lightning players to take the shootout to settle a scoreless game Sunday against the Washington Capitals, defencemen Matt Carle and Michael Kostka jumped out at him.
Needing a win to clinch home-ice advantage to start the playoffs against the Montreal Canadiens, Cooper could have picked snipers Steven Stamkos, Tyler Johnson or Victor Hedman, but instead chose as his first two shooters Carle, who had all of two goals in 82 games, and Kostka, a nine-goal man.
Turned out Cooper made the right call. Carle scored the only goal in the shootout and goalie Anders Lindback did the rest, stopping Alex Ovechkin, Evgeny Kuznetsov and Nicklas Backstrom to earn his first shutout of the season.
"The way things have gone this year for the team it was only fitting we'd have to play bonus hockey to get home ice," said Cooper, while riding on the team bus heading for the airport in Washington.
"Our guys are pretty determined, they didn't want to get on a plane for Montreal, they wanted to get home to our fans. We went through this little shootout streak a month ago where we lost three shootouts and went 0-for-15 and the next time we came to a shootout I ditched everybody and went to some of our d-men who had done pretty well in practice and we ended up winning that shootout. This was our first one since then and I just went with the guys who came through in that one.
"The big thing is when your goalie keeps them out it takes a lot of pressure off your shooters, but it was a lot of fun."
The win gave the (46-27-9) Lightning 101 points to take second place in the Atlantic Division and third overall in the Eastern Conference, one point ahead of the Canadians, who will be in Tampa on Wednesday to take on the Bolts in Game 1. The Lightning had their bags packed for a seven-day trip, which turned out an overnighter.
The day was even more special to Cooper knowing his mother Christine from Prince George was in the stands watching Sunday in Washington.
By default, Montreal becomes Canada's team, the only team north of the 49th parallel to make the playoffs. But in Prince George, where Cooper was born and raised, and where Lightning defenceman Eric Brewer played junior for the Prince George Cougars, a team he's investing in as a part-owner, don't be surprised to see a mass boarding of the Lightning bandwagon.
That will be even more the case when former Cougar captain Brett Connolly joins the Lightning in the playoffs. Connolly, 21, is with the Syracuse Crunch, who have three games left and will miss the AHL playoffs. Connolly, who had a four-point game Saturday against the Toronto Marlies, leads the Crunch in scoring with 20 goals and 55 points and Cooper said he'll be called up to Tampa once the AHL regular season ends on Saturday.
"Connolly will join us and you never know how deep we'll go in the playoffs, but he's played with us before and he's a big part of our future," said Cooper. "The one thing that kid can do is score and eventually we're going to need him."
The Lightning last week unveiled a statue in front of the arena in Tampa of former captain Dave Andreychuk hoisting the 2004 Stanley Cup. Cooper promised if the Lightning ever wins the Cup under his watch he'll bring it back to Prince George.
"There's nothing more fun than playing hockey in the spring and I can hardly wait to get it started," said Cooper. "I'm sure the whole province of Quebec and the whole city of Tampa were glued to that game tonight to see who gets to watch their team live on Wednesday night. Fortunately it's going to be us going home to play in front of these people who literally stood by us even in the darkest times last year when we were finishing in 28th place in the league.
"At some point hopefully we can reel in the Stanley Cup and we'll definitely have to swing it through Prince George."
