On Sunday, Jon Cooper reached a personal milestone as he coached in his 800th NHL game. The league’s longest tenured head coach stepped behind the bench for the first time on March 24th, 2013, a 3-2 loss to the Winnipeg Jets. He’s still behind the bench after 481 wins, 252 losses, 67 overtime losses, 2 Stanley Cups, and 4 Eastern Conference titles. Not bad for a former lawyer.
He did have a chance to eclipse Stan Bowman’s record of 481 wins in 800 games, but the Lightning dropped their weekend series with Detroit and Ottawa (how weird would it have been if he had bested Bowman in Detroit, where the hall of fame coach had most of his later glory?