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The Tampa Bay Lightning lost Game 1 of the Stanley Cup Final. After managing to score one goal, courtesy of top-six forward Alex Killorn, the Bolts were unable to put a puck in the Chicago Blackhawks net again. There was no bottom-six scoring to be found, which isn’t really a surprise given that there hasn’t been bottom-six scoring for a while. Yet, even as they struggled to create offense against at a team that has offense flowing on every line, ultra-talented Jonathan Drouin sat in the press box.
Now, I’ll admit that I had no intention of rehashing the Drouin storyline. It’s been covered at length, debated, and beaten like a dead horse. Then this happened:
Doesn't say where he got this from, but Steve Simmons suggests quite a rift is developing between Cooper and Drouin: pic.twitter.com/HGPd5Tk2Xk
— Ian McLaren (@iancmclaren) June 5, 2015Now, what’s particularly intriguing about the alleged conversation is Cooper’s response to Drouin’s question. Why isn’t it his time? “It just isn’t,… is not a good enough answer. Does Drouin have defensive deficiencies? People have made that argument. Are his defensive deficiencies any greater than other players who continually get fed playing time? I’d argue not. And then there’s the question of offense, something the Lightning have been starving for out of their bottom-six:
Jonathan Drouin's 5v5 points per 60 in 70 regular season games was 1.95. That is a shade below a 1st line rate of producing points.
— Ryan Wilson (@GunnerStaal) June 4, 2015What this Simmons article does, once again, is bring rise to speculation. It happened after Bob McKenzie went on TSN Radio before the Montreal series and said that he didn’t know whether a trade will happen. He didn’t shoot down the idea. He speculated that Drouin was likely frustrated. That was all back before the second round. Regardless of whether or not you believe he should be in the lineup right now (I understand and respect that many of you don’t), you can’t be oblivious to the fact that this situation has the potential to harm his long-term relationship with the team.
Granted, do we know that the relationship is being damaged? It’s tough to say at this point, so we don’t know for sure. With each passing day and each additional story or comment from a mainstream media source, however, the reality that this situation may have turned sour gets harder to ignore.
As always, thanks for reading.
Michael Stuart has been the Tampa Bay Lightning writer for HockeyBuzz since 2012. Visit his archive to read more or follow him on Twitter.