Jon Cooper

Tampa Bay's chance at a three-peat will be on the line Friday after a devastating loss.

“I couldn’t gap up and the guy flew in with a lot of speed, put it under my stick and just put it in the chicken wing on Vasy. So it’s a hard one to take. For us, we go in, our backs against the wall, we’ve done it more in these playoffs, and we’ll have to do it again. It stings right now but we go to go there and win a hockey game and bring it back here.” But the Lightning aren’t losing this series because of just that one call. “You know, I’ve been part of some heartbreaking losses and defeats to the teams that took us out and been with a group that just fights, fights and fights,” Cooper said. Here was Mikhail Sergachev, logging a team-high 32 minutes, 50 seconds, having to shoulder more because Cernak missed more than half the game. We’ll find out after the season just how bad guys are banged up, and what surgeries are planned. His Tampa Bay Lightning are now on the brink of elimination after a 3-2 overtime loss to the Colorado Avalanche in Game 4 of the Stanley Cup Final. They need to win three straight against a team they’ve only figured out how to beat once in the first four games of this series. “It’s extremely tough to get to this position and then when your backs are against the wall at the end, it’s the toughest mountain to climb,” captain Steven Stamkos said. But it was almost like everyone in the sellout crowd at Amalie Arena didn’t want to believe it. He sounded like the coach of a team whose season, and three-year residence on top of the NHL, is in danger. But all Cooper would say is that his team, the one built on guts and guile, should still be fighting.

Let's start, unconventionally, with the press conference. The entire press conference of Tampa coach Jon Cooper after Nazem Kadri's winner at 12:02 of ...

But I’m not Tampa! I’m just a hockey blogger with no horse in the race, and the NHL where that’s a good goal is better than an NHL where it’s not. And there was plenty of time for Tampa to pick up and put a body on Kadri—they just didn’t. Too many men is, like every call in hockey except offside (a problem for another day), called to the spirit and not the letter of the law. You do not want whistles every time a team has six skaters on the ice during a change. It was a bit of a weird one, for reasons entirely unrelated to the actual controversy. It might even be a fun game for you: Try to guess what in the hell he’s talking about.

Avalanche star Nazem Kadri wasn't buying Lightning coach Jon Cooper's complaints about his OT goal in Game 4 of the Stanley Cup Final.

In discussing the winning goal, each of the four officials advised that they did not see a too many men on the ice situation on the play.” Kadri might not have seen all the different angles and explanations when he made these comments, but would he have admitted the Avalanche were in the wrong if he did? Lightning head coach Jon Cooper claimed in his postgame press conference that the game should have still been going on, but without offering specifics.

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Tampa Bay Lightning head coach Jon Cooper was very emotional after his team's controversial 3-2 loss to the Colorado Avalan.

The Lightning then went on to win their second consecutive Stanley Cup Final by defeating the Montreal Canadiens. In discussing the winning goal, each of the four officials advised that they did not see a too many men on the ice situation on the play." They dropped the first three games of their series to the Detroit Red Wings before winning four straight. There was a similar situation that the Lightning benefited from in last year's playoffs. Barclay Goodrow was serving a two-minute penalty for cross-checking at the time. Prior to Nazem Kadri's game-winning goal, there was some confusion that the Avs may have had too many men on the ice.