Coleman rejoined the Lightning for practice Friday at the TGH Ice Plex. He was tired - he only got about five hours of sleep combined over the previous two days - but ecstatic too.
"I'm happy baby and mom are in good health," he said. "She's beautiful. There's really no experience like it."
Coleman said he and his wife checked into the hospital around 4 p.m. Wednesday. His wife endured 26-plus hours of labor.
"My wife is a trooper," he said. "Once things got moving, it went pretty quick. Just happy everyone's happy and healthy and already missing her daddy."
Coleman said he always thought he wanted to have a baby boy first. That is, until Charlie was born.
"I think I was sorely wrong," he said. "There's nothing like it. She immediately becomes the most important thing in your world, and it was an emotional day for me, my wife and my family. I'm already missing her. I can't wait to see her."
Coleman said Lightning management and coaching staff told him to take as much time as he needed, but he wanted to get back to the team as soon as possible, especially having only been a part of his new team for 13 days.
"This group's so great," he said. "They welcomed me back, and everyone's real excited. I heard from everybody after the (Chicago) game. It's nice being surrounded by good people when you go through things like this. Coming back to see the guys was something I wanted to do today. Management and coach Coop gave me a little bit of leeway with what I wanted to do, but obviously I'm also here to win games and compete. It's good to get back here and get a sweat and hopefully get the ship going the right way tomorrow."
Another reason to return to the rink? There's less crying in the Lightning locker room.
"She started crying at the end. I was ready for a breather," he joked.
RETURNING THE POWER TO THE POWER PLAY: The Lightning spent the first half of their practice session Friday working on the power play, a much-needed reset for a unit mired in a 6-for-66 slump since the start of 2020, a 9.1 percent success rate that rates last in the NHL over that stretch.
The Lightning were missing two key components of their power play Friday. Steven Stamkos was not at practice as he remains out with a lingering injury. Victor Hedman also did not participate as he was given a body-maintenance day.
Still, it was important for the unit to try to figure out why it was struggling after starting as one of the League's best at 29.7 percent and ranked second from the beginning of the season to the end of December.
"It's no secret that we've been a little dry here of late, but we haven't had a lot of practice time either," Lightning head coach Jon Cooper said. "Without Stamkos in there right now, we tried a few different looks, things we might have done in the past, may have been a couple years ago, just getting guys in spots, getting them feeling the puck a little bit. Definitely today was a lot of focus on special teams."
Yanni Gourde said a lot of the issues on the power play - and to some extent the penalty kill in recent times - are mental.
"There's always overthinking," he said. "Mental part of the game is big. It's huge. At the same time, we know we're a good group of guys. We know the system works on the PK. We know what works on the power play. I think it's just getting back to it and staying positive. It's going to work out. We're going to find a way to score goals and we're going to find a way to kill penalties."
