Head coach John Cooper may actually be on the hot seat.

The pressure on a coach, any coach, at the elite level in North American professional sports is always extreme. Whether it's a small market team, a big market team, a winning team, a losing team, coaches are always at the mercy of the old adage "what have you done for me lately," and it seems even one of the National Hockey League's most successful coaches is no exception.

There has been plenty of talk this season concerning NHL head coaches who are on the hot seat and in fact we have already seen several coaches ousted from their positions. Notably the Edmonton Oilers fired head coach Todd McLellan, the Chicago Blackhawks dropped a bombshell when they fired head coach Joel Quenneville, the St. Louis Blues quickly canned head coach Mike Yeo and most recently the Philadelphia Flyers fired head coach Dave Hakstol. Now it's worth noting that all of those coaches were at the helm of bad teams and that they were all fired during a slump in form for each of those aforementioned teams, it would be much more unusual to hear of a coach's job being on the line were he on a winning team. Well it now appears that is indeed the case for the winning coach in the entire league, head coach John Cooper of the Tampa Bay Lightning. 

From Bruce Garrioch of the Ottawa Sun:

… If the Tampa Bay Lightning don’t go a long way in the playoffs next spring then there’s a good chance coach Jon Cooper will be in trouble. The Lightning haven’t been nearly as good in the post-season as they should be and there’s a strong belief GM Julien Brisebois would want to bring in his own guys. If he were to get replaced in the summer, it’d be a perfect landing spot for Quennevillle.

The mere fact that a coach as successful as Cooper could be in consideration for termination is a rather stunning revelation, but when you look at the team the Lightning built under the leadership of Steve Yzerman you could hardly blame the organization for giving Cooper a limited window. He has failed to win a championship with one of the most stacked lineups in the entire NHL and his time may in fact be running out if he fails to do it again this season.