Cooper: Penalty ‘stupidity’ cost Lightning in Game 1 loss

Tampa Bay Lightning coach Jon Cooper said there was too much “stupidity” in the penalties his team committed during its 4-3 overtime loss to the visiting Montreal Canadiens in Game 1 on Sunday.

Canadiens winger Juraj Slafkovsky completed a hat trick just 1:22 into overtime to lift Montreal. All three of his goals were scored on the power play, during which the Canadiens went 3-for-5.

“I had a problem with us. We took four offensive-zone penalties. Just look at them. That’s not overaggression; that was stupidity on a lot of them. That was on us,” Cooper said after the loss.

That included a high-sticking penalty on winger Jake Guentzel with 21 seconds left in regulation, giving the Canadiens a power play that carried over into overtime, where Slafkovský ended it.

“That was a game that we just gave them an opportunity to win. This is the Stanley Cup playoffs. This is not Game No. 62. So, that was extremely disappointing in the way that we conducted ourselves and the amount of penalties that we took,” Cooper said.

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The Lightning went 2-for-5 on the power play in the loss.

Tampa Bay had the third-best penalty kill in the regular season (82.6%) but just the 15th-best penalty kill since February’s Olympic break (79.8%). Star defenseman Victor Hedman, who contributes to the penalty kill, last played March 19 after taking a leave from the Lightning for personal reasons. He is back with the team and skating but did not play in Game 1.

Cooper said it was more about the number of penalties than the penalty kill failing to prevent goals.

“If you’re going to kill penalties off at 50%, you’re probably not going to last that long. But if you’re killing penalties off at 50% when you only give up two [penalties], so it’s 1-for-2, maybe you can survive. You can’t let that happen. That’s on us. No excuses,” he said.

Cooper said he has seen the Lightning lose the first game in the playoffs and rally to win the series.

“That isn’t as much a concern as how we lost it. If that’s the way it’s going to keep going, then this series isn’t going to be as long as we thought,” he said.

Game 2 is Tuesday in Tampa, Florida.