{"id":395494,"date":"2026-01-07T12:23:42","date_gmt":"2026-01-07T12:23:42","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/395494\/"},"modified":"2026-01-07T12:23:42","modified_gmt":"2026-01-07T12:23:42","slug":"1000-games-and-counting-jon-coopers-journey-with-tampa-bay","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/395494\/","title":{"rendered":"1,000 Games and Counting: Jon Cooper\u2019s Journey with Tampa Bay"},"content":{"rendered":"

Lightning head coach Jon Cooper reached a new milestone Dec. 31, coaching his 1,000th NHL game. The team will officially celebrate Tuesday night, when the Lightning host the Colorado Avalanche at Benchmark International Arena.<\/p>\n

Cooper has been behind the Lightning bench since March 25, 2013, when he was promoted from the Syracuse Crunch with 16 games left in the 2012\u201313 season. Since then, he\u2019s led Tampa Bay to two Stanley Cup titles in 2020 and 2021 and four trips to the Stanley Cup Final. He became the 32nd coach in NHL history to hit 1,000 games, and the fifth to do so with one franchise.<\/p>\n

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\u201cHonestly, he’s such a great coach,\u201d said Lightning forward Yanni Gourde<\/a>, who returned to Tampa during last year’s trade deadline. \u201cLeaving and coming back makes you realize even more how next-level his coaching ability is. How much he trusts his coaching staff, and how much he trusts every single one of us in this organization. It’s really fun to have someone like that coach you.\u201d<\/p>\n

Players often point to Cooper\u2019s attention to detail, noting how well he reads the room and adjusts to how they feel in any situation, perfecting the balance between when to push them and when to pull back.<\/p>\n

\"\u00a9<\/p>\n

\u00a9 Kim Klement Neitzel-Imagn Images<\/p>\n

\u201cHe hasn\u2019t changed much, which I think is a great thing,\u201d said goaltender Andrei Vasilevskiy.<\/a> \u201cHe\u2019s been consistent for so many years, from game one to 1,000. He\u2019s always finding the right words, before the game and during the game\u2014just having that motivation for the players means a lot. Pressure or no pressure, he\u2019s the same Coop I\u2019ve known for twelve years now.\u201d<\/p>\n

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Vasilevskiy has always shared a strong relationship with Cooper, trusting his judgment when it comes to managing his workload. Together, over the years, they\u2019ve adjusted Vasilevskiy\u2019s starts as needed, though he reiterated he\u2019d like to play all 82 games.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe gave me the choice, but I\u2019d rather him decide what I play and what I don\u2019t,\u201d Vasilevskiy said with a smile. \u201cI\u2019ve told him many times that I\u2019ll play all 82.”<\/p>\n

For Brandon Hagel<\/a>,\u00a0Cooper\u2019s support makes players want to win even more, highlighting the people he surrounds himself with and how he always has his players\u2019 backs.<\/p>\n

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\u201cLook at what he\u2019s done,\u201d Hagel said. \u201cHe\u2019s very level-headed. I mean, he\u2019s coached 1,000 games with the same team. You can lose a dressing room pretty quick \u2026 95 percent of these guys have only had Coop as their coach, and he\u2019s still here. I\u2019m very fortunate to have him on my side throughout my career. He\u2019s only made me a better player. He treats everyone with respect.\u201d<\/p>\n

It hasn\u2019t just been about winning; Cooper has also experienced his share of highs and lows. He led the Lightning to the Stanley Cup Final in 2015 against the Chicago Blackhawks, only to come up short. Later, they suffered a first-round sweep to Columbus during the Lightning\u2019s Presidents\u2019 Trophy-winning season in 2018\u201319. That loss stung, and the city was in an uproar.<\/p>\n

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\u00a9 Kim Klement-Imagn Images<\/p>\n

\u201cI will sit here and say I don\u2019t think there\u2019s anyone more fortunate than me that in 2013 I was called upon to coach this team,\u201d said Cooper. \u201cJust to have this whole group that gave me the ability to succeed, but allowed me to fail. Not too many people are afforded that, and I was. And I\u2019m extremely thankful.\u201d<\/p>\n

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Off the ice, Cooper has become a mainstay in the Tampa Bay community, founding the J5 Foundation alongside his wife, Jessie<\/a>. His Coop\u2019s Catch fishing tournament has raised $1.5 million for pediatric cancer research and support, with this year being the largest yet.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe one thing that I can\u2019t ever forget is the fans of Tampa, because they were part of this and they\u2019ve watched us grow,\u201d Cooper said after his 1,000th game. \u201cThey\u2019ve been with us through the ups and downs, and in the end they\u2019ve just got the team at heart. And I think it\u2019s just one big family. And I\u2019m just unbelievably fortunate to be able to call Tampa my home. It\u2019s all my kids know and it\u2019s family, and this is, it\u2019s a humbling moment for me. Not gonna lie.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Lightning head coach Jon Cooper reached a new milestone Dec. 31, coaching his 1,000th NHL game. The team…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":395495,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5105],"tags":[243,97,96,144,5,2086,189,4,14,540,92,5168,5167,400],"class_list":{"0":"post-395494","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-tampa-bay-lightning","8":"tag-andrei-vasilevskiy","9":"tag-brandon-hagel","10":"tag-chicago-blackhawks","11":"tag-colorado-avalanche","12":"tag-hockey","13":"tag-jon-cooper","14":"tag-lightning","15":"tag-nhl","16":"tag-stanley-cup","17":"tag-tampa-bay","18":"tag-tampa-bay-lightning","19":"tag-tampabay","20":"tag-tampabaylightning","21":"tag-yanni-gourde"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nhl\/115853800658591591","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/395494","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=395494"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/395494\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/395495"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=395494"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=395494"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=395494"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}