Jon Cooper just made a promise to the National Hockey League

PUBLICATION

Jeff Drouin
June 29, 2022 (8:54)

SHARE THIS STORY

After all the great footage, the great goals, the interesting comments, the controversies, it's now over. The 2021-22 NHL season is officially behind us and we have a brand new Stanley Cup champion.

The Colorado Avalanche have dethroned the Tampa Bay Lightning.

After this exciting series, it was time for the Tampa Bay Lightning to take stock. We learned that several players of the team were banged up during the final series:

In addition to learning that, there is also head coach Jon Cooper who, as usual, had some interesting things to say.

Sunday night's loss hurts him and his players immensely (Steven Stamkos even admitted that it makes him sick), but Cooper made a promise to the National Hockey League and to the various teams.

Empowered, he promised this:

"I promise you, you're not done with us. We're not done (winning championships). I mean ... In the last eight years, we've been to something like six conference finals. [...] This is a loss that really hurts deeply. We play the whole season to get there, and we were two days away from winning and making history. You remember the teams you win with. Normally, you don't remember the ones you don't win with as much. But I will always remember this team. I can promise you that we will come back stronger and hungrier than ever." - Jon Cooper

Elliotte Friedman (Sportsnet) rightly mentioned this on his most recent episode of the "32 Thoughts" podcast. It's scary for a few teams to hear that and to hear the intonation in Cooper's voice.

If they get angry and decide to destroy everything in their path next year to avenge this failure (like they did after their elimination against the Columbus Blue Jackets), it could be a very long and painful year for the Tampa Bay Lightning's detractors (and for the teams in their division)

Until then, between now and the beginning of next season, Julien BriseBois will have to find a way to re-sign his forward Ondrej Palat, even if he has (-2 millions) available on his payroll. He will have to pull off another small miracle by manipulating the salary cap.