Lightning coach Jon Cooper’s reaction to winning 1st Jack Adams says it all

Jon Cooper has guided the Tampa Bay Lightning to nine consecutive playoff appearances, three Stanley Cup Final berths and two championships — but he had never won the Jack Adams Award as the NHL’s coach of the year.

That changed on Wednesday, when Cooper was surprised with the trophy at a charity event at Tampa General Hospital.

“OK, you got me. I never thought this day would come,” Cooper said after receiving the honor, per NHL.com’s Corey Long.

Cooper credited the organization’s culture for the sustained success.

“There’s no secret sauce,” Cooper said. “We’ve got a group and we’ve got a plan and we ultimately believe in bringing in good people. Are we perfect, any of us? No, but we have a foundation, a belief and a standard in how things have to be run.”

Cooper is the longest-tenured coach in the NHL, joining the Lightning late in the 2012-13 campaign. Tampa Bay missed the playoffs that season and has missed only once since.

Although recent postseasons have been disappointing — the Bolts have suffered four consecutive first-round exits — the club still won 50 games during the 2025-26 regular season.

It marked the fifth 50-win season of Cooper’s tenure, according to Long, and helped the Lightning finish second in the Atlantic Division.

“It was a magical group and to think that we had one win in our first seven games, but nobody questioned what was happening, nobody questioned our belief in what we were doing,” Cooper explained. “And then we slowly took off. There were times with doubt, especially when a lot of the players went down the way they did.”

Cooper has been a finalist for the Jack Adams Award three times, finishing second in voting in 2018-19 and third in 2013-14. He becomes just the second coach in Tampa history to win the award, joining John Tortorella in 2003-04.

The award arrives after one of the most eventful years of his coaching career. Along with earning his 600th NHL victory in January and coaching Team Canada to a silver medal at the Winter Olympics in Milan, he also endured the loss of his father, Robert.

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