- Jeff Marek says Jon Cooper would take on the Maple Leafs job if Tampa Bay ever let him go
- Greg Wyshynski calls Toronto one of the last great missions left in pro sports
- Read below for why The Hockey News is telling everyone to pump the brakes
Jon Cooper is not leaving Tampa Bay.
That did not stop two of hockey’s loudest voices from spending part of Wednesday’s episode of The Sheet on what happens if he ever does. Jeff Marek was asked whether Cooper would take the Toronto job, and he did not hedge.
“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,” Marek said.
Watch the full exchange:
Greg Wyshynski agreed, then framed the job as the biggest prize left on the board for a coach who already has everything else.
“You could totally see Cooper doing it at some point, if he really wanted to,” Wyshynski said. “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.”
Michael Traikos of The Hockey News wants everyone to slow down. He wrote that believing Toronto would fire Hiller after hiring him in June and hand the room to the reigning Jack Adams winner takes the same leap of faith as believing Sidney Crosby would leave Pittsburgh for Colorado because he and Nathan MacKinnon are both from Nova Scotia.
Hiller has not coached a regular-season game in Toronto yet. Morgan Rielly talked about the new bench boss at the Hockey Night in Brampton charity event last week and pointed to the four years Hiller already spent on the Leafs staff.
“I think that there’s trust there that he’s built with the players that he’s had the first time around,” Rielly said. “I think that’s helping him. I mean, he knows the staff and the guys. So I think that’s going to help.”
Cooper’s own situation is murkier than it looks. He extended with the Lightning before last season and the terms were never made public, though GM Julien BriseBois has said repeatedly he wants him around for a long time.
He then dragged an injury-battered roster to a 50-26-6 finish and picked up his first Jack Adams Award. Here is the moment he found out, in the middle of a hospital ribbon-cutting:
The other side of the ledger is four straight first-round exits since the 2022 Final. Traikos also noted that the Jack Adams has turned into a curse lately, with three of the last four winners losing their jobs not long after collecting it.
Cooper has two Stanley Cups, a 4 Nations title and an overtime goal between him and Olympic gold in Milan. The gap on the resume is the one Pat Burns, Pat Quinn and Mike Babcock all tried to close in Toronto and could not.
Nobody has won a Cup with the Maple Leafs since 1967. That drought is the whole reason a podcast hypothetical about a coach under contract in Florida turned into a week of headlines.
