Jon Cooper is the NHL\u2019s top coach for 2025-2026.<\/p>\n
The Tampa Bay Lightning<\/a> bench boss was announced as the recipient of the Jack Adams Award on Wednesday.<\/p>\n Cooper, 58, was surprised with the honour during a visit to Tampa Bay General Hospital where he was in the Coop\u2019s Catch for Kids Cancer Lounge.<\/p>\n A native of Prince George, BC, Cooper edged out finalists Dan Muse of the Pittsburgh Penguins<\/a> and the Buffalo Sabres<\/a>\u2019 Lindy Ruff.<\/p>\n This was Cooper\u2019s third time as a finalist and first victory. He led the Lightning to a 50-26-6 mark, good for second place in the Atlantic. In 14 seasons with the team, Cooper has a record of 622-339-89. His 622 wins are 22nd all-time and seventh-most among active coaches.<\/p>\n Cooper has guided the Lightning to 12 postseason appearances in his 14 years and led them to Stanley Cup triumphs in 2020 and 2021.<\/p>\n Cooper initially joined the Bolts\u2019 organization in 2010 and led the American Hockey League\u2019s Norfolk Admirals to a Calder Cup in 2012.<\/p>\n Internationally, Cooper was the head coach of Team Canada at both the 2025 4 Nations Face-Off and the 2026 Milano Cortina Winter Olympics.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Jon Cooper is the NHL\u2019s top coach for 2025-2026. The Tampa Bay Lightning bench boss was announced as…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":713369,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[556],"tags":[16159,64,63,575,85,217186],"class_list":["post-713368","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nhl","tag-apple-news","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-nhl","tag-sports","tag-tampa-bay-lightning-sports-hockey-team-team-nhl-api-14"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/713368","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=713368"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/713368\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/713369"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=713368"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=713368"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=713368"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}