TAMPA, Fla. — The Tampa Bay Lightning hired Jon Cooper as their new coach on Monday.
Cooper had been coaching Syracuse of the AHL, Tampa Bay’s top minor league affiliate. He is replacing Guy Boucher, who was fired Sunday after 2 1/2 years with the team.
“He has had success at every level he has coached and is extremely familiar with our organization, as well as our players,” Tampa Bay general manager Steve Yzerman said in a statement. “He has a tremendous record at all levels and we feel he is ready to make the move to the NHL.”
The Lightning, at 13-18-1, are in next to last place in the Eastern Conference and appear headed to missing the playoffs for the second consecutive season.
Cooper will coach his first game for the Lightning on Friday night against the New Jersey Devils.
“There is no other team in hockey that I would rather be coaching than the Tampa Bay Lightning,” Cooper said in a statement.
“It’s quite a tribute to Steve Yzerman, (owner) Jeff Vinik and the organization they are building that they are proud to promote from within. I look forward to getting to know the players and getting to work right away.”
The 45-year old Copper also coached at Norfolk of the AHL when it was a Lightning minor league team from 2010-12. His AHL record is 133-62-26.
Ten players on Tampa Bay’s roster, including rookie centre Cory Conacher, who has nine goals and 23 points, played for Syracuse this season.
Dan Lacroix and Steve Thomas will handle coaching duties when the Lightning host the Buffalo Sabres on Tuesday night. The pair will then remain as assistant coaches for Cooper.
Syracuse assistant Rob Zettler will take over for Cooper in the minors. Lightning assistant coach Martin Raymond will join Zettler’s staff.
Raymond and Lacroix coached Tampa Bay on Sunday in Winnipeg when the Lightning lost 3-2 to the Jets.
Tampa Bay entered this season with playoff aspirations after adding goalie Anders Lindback and defencemen Sami Salo and Matt Carle. Lindback and captain Vincent Lecavalier have been among the players sidelined by injuries.
— whic�� np��pp�r’s 15-game winning streak on Monday night. Miami’s trip ends Sunday in San Antonio.
It’s now the second-longest winning streak in American major sports, behind only the Lakers’ run. Baseball’s New York Giants won 26 straight games in 1916, the New England Patriots took 21 consecutive NFL games in 2003 and 2004, and the NHL’s Pittsburgh Penguins won 17 consecutive times in 1993.
“When they got rolling, we had to try to stop them,” said Orlando’s Kyle O’Quinn. “But they got rolling too quick.”
Both teams were missing key components, Dwyane Wade for Miami and Nik Vucevic for Orlando.
Wade missed his second straight contest with a sore right knee, one that he said before the game had been bothering him periodically since March 9 and then flared up after a collision against Boston last week. He had an MRI exam over the weekend to rule out any major problems and plans to play at Chicago on Wednesday.
Vucevic sat his third straight game while dealing with a mild concussion. Vucevic averaged a staggering 22.5 points and 25 rebounds in two games against Miami earlier this season. Compounding the injury issues for Orlando was losing power forward Andrew Nicholson, the team’s first player off the bench Monday, to a sprained left ankle just 1:52 after he checked in for what was the only time.
A 9-2 run early in the third gave Miami what was then its biggest lead, 64-53. Instead of deflating the Magic, it seemed to almost inspire the hosts, who answered with probably their best 5-minute stretch of the game, capped by a 3-pointer by Nelson with 3 minutes left that tied the game at 68-all.
And when James missed a layup at the other end, then got called for a foul after the rebound, Orlando may very well have been thinking that the streak could soon be snapped.
Nope.
“They’re a great team,” Magic rookie Maurice Harkless said. “They got a lot of different weapons out there. Obviously there’s a reason why they’ve won so many games in a row. They just took it to another level at that point in the game. We couldn’t punch back. They hit us and we couldn’t find a way to hit back.”
Miami needed only 2 minutes to close the quarter with 10 unanswered points, with James doing either the orchestrating or performing. He got loose on a curl for a dunk to start the run, and the Heat took off.
Chris Andersen — the Heat are now 29-1 when he plays — got Miami the ball with a spectacular block against Harkless. James then cleared everyone out to drive on Harkless, score and get fouled for a three-point play.
That was part of a rough few moments for the rookie out of St. John’s.
Harkless threw the ball into the sideline seats on Orlando’s next possession, and James found Allen for a 3-pointer. Harkless had another turnover with 19.5 seconds left and then fouled James with 4.2 ticks remaining. James missed both shots, but got his own rebound, was fouled by Harris and made those two ensuing free throws for a 78-68 Miami lead.
“Any time LeBron gets a dunk, that excites everybody,” Chalmers said. “Makes us play a little bit harder.”
The run didn’t stop there. Allen started the fourth quarter with a 3-pointer, pushing Miami’s edge to 81-68 as Orlando’s Beno Udrih — who was 0 for 8 from the field at that point — lay writhing in pain under the basket after apparently being hit in the face.
It was injury to insult, at that point.
Norris Cole lobbed one off the glass to James for a dunk and an 83-70 lead, Allen made another 3-pointer on the next possession, James set up Andersen for an alley-oop dunk as half the arena roared in delight as the reigning champions pushed the margin to 18.
Game, over.
Streak, not over.
NOTES: There was practically a baseball All-Star team in attendance, with Ken Griffey Jr., Detroit slugger Prince Fielder and Yankees left-hander CC Sabathia all near one another opposite the Miami bench. Tigers stars Justin Verlander and Miguel Cabrera were also in the crowd, as was Masters champion Bubba Watson. … Orlando comes to Miami on April 17 in the regular-season finale for both teams.
