Jon Cooper's future as head coach of the Tampa Bay Lightning is uncertain, but it's too early to suggest he'll be headed to the Toronto Maple Leafs.
The 2026-27 NHL season has not even begun and a couple of coaches are already on the hot seat.
It must be a slow news week. Or maybe after six coaches were fired last season, including two who were axed with less than 10 games remaining on the schedule, it's safe to assume that no job is safe.
Perhaps that is why ESPN's Greg Wyshynski and Daily Faceoff's Jeff Marek spent time debating whether Jon Cooper would leave Tampa Bay Lightning to coach the Toronto Maple Leafs during The Sheet podcast on Wednesday.
To believe the Maple Leafs would A) fireJim Hiller, who was just hired in June, and replace him with Jon Cooper, who just won the Jack Adams Trophy with the Lightning, requires a mental leap of faith similar to believing that Sidney Crosby would leave Pittsburgh to play in Colorado with Nathan MacKinnon, just because they are both from Nova Scotia.
Logically, it kind of makes sense.
But then again, it really doesn't. At least, not now.
"I know the Toronto Maple Leafs have a new coach in Jim Hiller and this is probably unfair, but I do think that Jon Cooper is of the mind that that's a real challenge that he would embrace," said Marek.
"You could totally see Cooper doing it at some point, if he really wanted to," added Wyshynshki.
"Now again, this means that he doesn't have the pool, that he's not smoking cigars in the Tampa weather. But if you've accomplished all you've accomplished in Tampa, that's in the pantheon of professional sports, that is one of the last great missions to accomplish."
The key phrase here is "at some point." As in, not this season. Or, not anytime soon. Maybe not ever.
At the very least, let's see what the first month of the season looks like before we start putting coaches on the hot seat.
With the Atlantic Division looking like it's going to be even more competitive than normal, there is a chance that both Hiller and Cooper could be coaching for the jobs if either the Leafs or Lightning find themselves at the bottom of the standings by U.S. Thanksgiving.
But the idea that Hiller is already under the gun is a bit premature, especially after Morgan Rielly told reporters on Wednesday that he believes the former Leafs associate coach's familiarity with the roster will be an advantage.
"I think that there's trust there that he's built with the players that he's had the first time around," Rielly told reporters at the Hockey Night in Brampton charity event. "I think that's helping him. I mean, he knows the staff and the guys. So I think that's going to help."
The Cooper speculation is even sillier, considering he was finally named the NHL's top coach after guiding an injury-depleted Lightning team to a miraculous 50-26-6 record. Then again, the Jack Adams Award has typically been a kiss of death for coaches, with three of the past four winners losing their jobs shortly after winning the award.
Yes, Cooper has qualified for the playoffs in each of the past nine seasons. But since reaching the final in 2022, he's also lost in the first round in four consecutive years. At some point, every coach has a shelf life. If the Lightning were to struggle this season, there is a chance that he could be gone.
The day Cooper is fired would be the day that 31 coaching positions would instantly be available. He is that good of a coach. Cooper's won two Stanley Cups, led Canada to a 4 Nations Face-Off championship, and came within an overtime goal of winning gold at this year's Olympics in Milan.
If there is a hole in his resume aside from gold at the Olympics, it's the same hole that Mike Babcock and many others have tried to fill: Bringing the Stanley Cup back to Canada.
It's one thing to win a championship in Florida, and it's another to win in the centre of the hockey universe. The challenge of being the first since 1967 to win a Stanley Cup with the Maple Leafs is one that led so many Hall of Fame coaches — from Pat Burns and Pat Quinn to Randy Carlyle and Ron Wilson — to put their resumes on the line and come to Toronto.
Who knows, maybe Cooper will be next.
After all, who wouldn't want to coach Auston Matthews, William Nylander and Gavin McKenna? Who wouldn't want a school named after you for bringing a long-awaited championship to the Cup-starved city? Who wouldn't want to go down as perhaps one of the greatest bench bosses of all time?
The fact that as many as 15 coaches interviewed for the Maple Leafs job tells you that it's a role that many covet. That could include Cooper.
But for now he's got a job, and according to his boss in Tampa Bay, general manager Julien BriseBois, "he's going to be here for a while."
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