Jon Cooper to return as Lightning head coach next season - ESPN

Tampa Bay Lightning coach Jon Cooper will return for the 2025-26 season, general manager Julien BriseBois said Friday, shutting down speculation that they might part ways after a first-round loss to the Florida Panthers.

«Coop will be back next year,» BriseBois said, adding that he hopes his coach's tenure would extend beyond that.

Cooper, 57, is the longest-tenured coach in the NHL, having been hired by the Lightning in March 2013. He led Tampa Bay to back-to-back Stanley Cup championships in 2020 and 2021, as well as four Eastern Conference championships in 2015, 2020, 2021 and 2022. His teams had a .638 points percentage during that span, third best among active coaches with a minimum of 500 games behind the bench.

But the Lightning haven't advanced past the first round of the Eastern Conference playoffs in three straight seasons, including back-to-back five-game losses to the rival Florida Panthers.

«It was our turn for a while. Now it's theirs. And it's our job to make sure it's our turn again,» said Cooper after Wednesday's elimination.

Cooper is under contract through the 2025-26 season. BriseBois praised their decade-plus working partnership and said that he expected it «to go on for many years to come, regardless of how many years he's got left on his contract.»

Despite his tenure, his roots in the community and his decade-plus working partnership with BriseBois, there was growing speculation that the team might make a change — and that Cooper might seek a new challenge himself after his run with the Lightning had stalled. He has appeared on Turner networks as a studio analyst for NHL games.

Then there's the speculation about Utah.

Cooper has a friendship — on the golf course and beyond — with Utah Hockey Club