Tampa Bay Lightning head coach Jon Cooper was dining with his wife in Chicago on Monday night when unexpected drinks arrived at his table, compliments of his former forward, Richard Panik.
"I thought, 'How would he know I was here?' I turned around he was sitting two tables behind me with his wife," Cooper recalled Tuesday morning. "So I thought that was pretty funny."
In the days Panik played for Cooper, first with the Norfolk Admirals and then the Lightning, he struggled with inconsistency. Several years later he's improved in that area, and the Blackhawks are benefiting from it.