Jon Cooper
This name is the one I’ve been saying for weeks now, even as things start to calm down in Tampa. It sounds crazy to even mention the Tampa Bay Lightning moving on from their historic head coach in the midst of a seven-game win streak. However, none of this matters for Jon Cooper. He’s coming off a season where his team won the President’s Trophy, but then won exactly zero games in the playoffs.
Cooper needs to win in the playoffs, and win a lot if he wants to put some ice on his seat. Right now, the Lightning are sitting as the third seed. They don’t even have home-ice advantage in the first round. They’d be going to Toronto for the first two games of the postseason. If the Lightning were to lose in the first round again, it could be curtains for him in the Sunshine State.
If that’s the case, he needs to be at the top of the list for possible Devils coaches. It is a disappointment that he has all this talent in Tampa, yet never won a Stanley Cup, but the Devils just need a coach to get them there. They need a coach that will get the best out of young players, and that is absolutely Cooper. Ignore the Steven Stamkoses and Nikita Kucherovs that would be good under just about anyone, just look at what Cooper’s gotten out of the Brayden Point, Victor Hedman, Alex Killorn and Anthony Cirelli.
The Devils have Jack Hughes, Nico Hischier, Jesper Boqvist, Miles Wood, Pavel Zacha, Jesper Bratt, Will Butcher and Mackenzie Blackwood on the roster right now. All of them are under the age of 25. Then, there’s a flurry of prospects across the world that could turn into something great. Just in the AHL, there’s Michael McLeod, Nathan Bastian, Joey Anderson and Mikhail Maltsev, among many, many others.
The Devils need to hire someone who can help them win now and develop their young players at the same time. He’s been doing that for a long time in Tampa, and he could easily replicate it in New Jersey.