If nothing else, Jon Cooper and Jeff Blashill will have plenty to talk about during their annual summer golf outing.
The head coaches of the Tampa Bay Lightning and Detroit Red Wings, respectively, are good friends on and off the ice. They regularly text and talk during the regular season (although more at the beginning of the season than of late). They pull for each other when they’re not playing each other. And they even find time to hit the links together in the summer when their schedules allow.
On Wednesday, the two good friends will meet up in the Stanley Cup Playoffs for the first time as Cooper’s Lightning host Blashill’s Red Wings in a First Round reprisal of last season’s seven-game war between the two Atlantic Division rivals.