Coaching in sports. You have to be good at what you do to be able to coach in the National Hockey League. In fact, there have been 401 people that have coached at least one game at that level. Thirty two of those people have done that more than 1,000 times. Tampa Bay Lightning head coach Jon Cooper is one of those guys. He hit that mark before the end of 2025. Now he has reached another milestone.
Monday night, in a win over the Philadelphia Flyers, Cooper won his 600th game as an NHL head coach. Cooper got 600 wins in his 1,005th game, 2nd fastest in NHL history. Only one man, the great Scotty Bowman, got to that milestone faster. Bowman did it in 1,002 games. With that 600th win, Cooper becomes the 25 coach in history to reach that mark and is the 5th active coach to hit that number. Todd McLellan, Lindy Ruff, Paul Maurice and Joel Quenneville are the others.
Cooper’s record and numbers speak for themselves. 1.005 games coached, 600 wins (and counting for both), career .640 win percentage during the regular season. Two Stanley Cups, four total finals appearances 88 wins in 155 playoff games behind the bench. Since Cooper took over behind the bench late in the 2021-13 season, Tampa has never had fewer than 40 wins in a season (they had 36 wins in 2021 but that was the COVID shortened season). Also in that time, the Lightning have only missed the playoffs once. Those are all eye popping numbers. It speaks to how great of a coach Jon Cooper is. He knows how to get the best out of the players that he has. He knows when to push the right buttons and he can get the best out of what he is given.
Cooper had the best response when asked about hitting that milestone. “You get 600 wins ... it probably means you've had a lot of really good players. Ultimately, I've had a bunch of really good players, and they've made me look good."
Congratulations to Jon Cooper on hitting the major milestone!
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