Jon Cooper's whining convinced the officials to call a penalty and it's worked all playoffs long

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Joshua Deeds
June 26, 2022 (8:07)

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Tampa Bay Lightning Head Coach, Jon Cooper has 2 Stanley Cups under his belt. Because of that he's begun to carry additional favour with NHL referees. But that's starting to become a problem for other teams unwilling to take the same approach.

After Game 4 Cooper's emotional comments called out the officials. Most notably what he deemed a too many men penalty. Game 5 saw Cooper's comments work in his advantage, like it has for most of these playoffs.

Jon Cooper would never hold himself accountable, as last year versus the New York Islander's he was just as guilty:

As you may remember, Tampa Bay scored the only goal of Game 7 of the 2021 Eastern Conference Semifinals against the Islanders with seven men on the ice and they were supposed to be shorthanded.

So while Jon Cooper cries crocodile tears to manipulate the NHL into game management to sway Game 5 in their favor, where in all evidence I've seen, Colorado wasn't guilty of having too many men on the ice, it was just a play being observed under a microscope.

This too many men call essentially put away the Avalanche's chances of winning Game 5. So while the officials remained hyper vigilant watching line changes they somehow missed Cale Makar getting hooked.