Familiarity and respect among coaches left in NHL playoffs

When Barry Trotz’s Washington Capitals knocked out Jon Cooper’s Tampa Bay Lightning on the way to the Stanley Cup in 2018, the two coaches talked that summer about how it all went down. A similar conversation happened last fall after Cooper and the Lightning went through Trotz’s New York Islanders to win the Cup. “You don’t usually get that with a ton of coaches, but Barry is a pretty open guy and for the most part I guess I am too, and we’re not afraid to share stuff with each other.”