First Published Tuesday, 17 Jan 2012 -- Do you think we were on to something?
The Tampa Bay Lightning are struggling and are in need of a spark, could former NAHL & USHL bench boss Jon Cooper provide the fire needed to turn the Bolt's season around?
Current head coach Guy Boucher and General Manager Steve Yzerman are friends, but all that buddy-buddy stuff goes out the window when the team is sitting in last place. Cooper meanwhile has his AHL Admirals on the right track and has been successful at every level he has coached.
Will Yzerman and the Lightning make the switch? Tampa Bay is winless in 2012 and Sunday's rematch with the Pittsburgh Penguins featured the same old story for the hapless Bolts- slow start, weak goaltending, lost momentum- in a 6-3 loss that dropped the Lightning to the bottom of the Eastern Conference standings.
Cooper has a fantastic history of getting the absolute most out of his players. From his days in the old Central States Hockey League with the Metro-Jets to leading the Green Bay Gamblers to a pair of Anderson Cups.
Tampa Bay has lost seven straight games. There are a number of problems the team is facing but it is impossible to pin the failures on anything other than coaching. The Blue line is too old, goaltending is sub-par, and the team is soft physically.
Martin St Louis has failed to score in eleven straight games and has only lit the lamp once since December 6th. This is unacceptable.
Giving Cooper the keys to the National Hockey League club simply makes sense. Numbers don't lie and Cooper's success tells one heck of a story.
What do you think?
Author: Stephen Heisler from JuniorHockey.com
