Cooper: Bolts’ Type Level must be ‘higher than ever’ in Atlantic Dogfight

On By Littum

Tampa Bay Lightning -Head coach Jon Cooper knows how important his teams’ next four matches are as the dog speed of an endgame in the eastern conference is raging.

The bolts take the Ottawa senators on Tuesday and Thursday, Detroit Red Wings on Saturday, and Montreal Canadiens next Sunday in a stretch that could shake up the Atlantic Division before the break for the 4 nations face.

“These are four matches with our playoff fate – you can’t sit here and say right now it’s in balance – but will you make it a little easier for yourself or a little harder?” Cooper said After Bolts’ 3-2 overtime loss to New York Islanders on Saturday. “All teams that are tied around are staring right in the face for the next four matches.”

He added, “We sat down in a decent position in the first third of the year, and that’s why you do it. Because when times get tough we had a slight bulge in the position. Now we’re no longer doing it. So now it’s A race in the last 30 matches here and our urgent level will have to be higher than ever.

The lightning still has the second wild-card site in the eastern conference, but the Atlantic is incredibly crowded into Sunday’s action.

Rank Team GP Record Points
1 Florida Panthers 53 31-19-3 65
2 Toronto Maple Leafs 52 31-19-2 64
3 Ottawa Senators 52 28-20-4 60
4 Tampa Bay Lightning (WC2) 51 27-20-4 58
5 Boston Bruins 54 26-22-6 58
6 Detroit Red Wings 52 26-21-5 57
7 Montreal Canadiens 51 24-22-5 53
8 Buffalo Sabres 51 20-26-5 45

Lightning Forward Jake Guentzel is aware of the effort and compared the upcoming dates with the senators with a “two-game playoff series.”

“It will be huge,” he said.

Tampa Bay became the third in her department after walking 18-10-2 through her first 30 matches. However, it has been harsh sled for the multi-year playoff challengers from late as they are 7-8-2 over the past month.

Scoring matches is an important contributor to lightning’s recent decline. The bolts led the league to goals per Match (3.94), before the calendar tilted to 2025, but rank 26. In the same category (2.47) since the beginning of January.

“There was a long period when we probably scored expected,” Cooper justified. “Now we definitely score less than expected, but we don’t give up a ton … Some of these we’ve escaped because we haven’t been able to score, but you can’t just keep getting chances, chances , chances and they won’t go in.

“The tide will change. It’s just testing your will and your patience.”

The puck falls on lightning’s first clash with Ottawa at. 19.00 A Tuesday.