Jon Cooper has been the face of Tampa Bay Lightning hockey for so long that it’s easy to forget how many other coaches came before him. By the time he finishes his 14th full season behind the bench, he will have overseen 40% of the franchise’s history. For plenty of fans, he’s the only head coach they’ve ever known.
That kind of run makes a look back worthwhile. Tampa Bay has had nine head coaches in all, and only three of them lasted more than 195 games. Cooper sits far above the rest, but the two longest tenures before him - John Tortorella and Terry Crisp - each left a real mark on the organization.
Tortorella’s Tampa Bay years ran from 2001-02 through 2007-08, and they included the high point of the franchise’s early rise. He was 45 when he guided a warm-weather team to the Stanley Cup in 2004, seven years younger than Cooper is now.
Over his regular-season stint with the Lightning, he posted a 239-222-36-38 record, with 36 ties included separately from overtime losses. He remains one of only three head coaches in team history with a winning points percentage.
The results went beyond that championship season. Tampa Bay won two division titles under Tortorella and reached the playoffs in four straight seasons that were actually played, with the 2004-05 campaign wiped out by the lockout.
Before Tortorella, there was Terry Crisp, the first coach in franchise history. He arrived with serious credentials, having won three Stanley Cups - one as a head coach and two as a player - but taking over an expansion team is a different kind of challenge. The Lightning were working with the bottom of the barrel, and Crisp had to build from there.
He got the first win in team history on opening night, then helped the club inch forward. Tampa Bay jumped from 53 points in its first season in 1992-93 to 71 the next year, and it earned at least a point in 41 of 84 games. His best season came in 1995-96, when the Lightning posted their first winning record and made their first playoff appearance.
That postseason run also produced a memorable scene at the Thunderdome in St. Petersburg, Fla., where 28,183 fans showed up - still a record.
Crisp didn’t make it to the end of his final season, and his overall numbers don’t leap off the page. But his place in the franchise’s story is secure.
He coached the expansion team that eventually grew into one of the NHL’s best, and that first taste of the playoffs helped give the Lightning an early fanbase that stuck around.
Cooper is untouchable at the top of this list. Still, the coaches who came before him helped lay the foundation, and Tampa Bay’s rise doesn’t happen without them.
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Sabres May Have An Edge If The Atlantic Gets Drained Again
The Atlantic Divisions last season was shaped by more than just the usual race for points, and the Olympic break may have left a different kind of mark on some teams than others. Buffalo and Montreal were built more like spread-out, younger rosters, which could have helped them navigate a compressed schedule better than clubs leaning harder on veteran stars who spent a lot of time at the Winter Olympics.
For Tampa Bay, the broader takeaway is less about one standings quirk than about how much roster makeup matters when the calendar gets crowded. The divisions teams sent varying numbers of players to the Olympics, and those differences mattered because fatigue does not hit every lineup the same way, especially when a clubs best players are asked to carry so much of the load. [Read more 🡒]