List of Tampa Bay Lightning head coaches

The Lightning has played their home games at the St. Pete Times Forum since 1996.

The Tampa Bay Lightning are an American professional ice hockey team based in Tampa, Florida. They play in the Southeast Division of the Eastern Conference in the National Hockey League (NHL). Often referred to as the Bolts, as seen from their third jerseys, the team joined the NHL in 1992 as an expansion team, and won their first Stanley Cup championship in 2004. Having first played in the Expo Hall, and later in the ThunderDome (now known as Tropicana Field), the Lightning have played their home games at the St. Pete Times Forum, which was first named the Ice Palace, since 1996. The majority of the Lightning are owned by Oren Koules and Len Barrie, Brian Lawton is their general manager, and Vincent Lecavalier is the team captain.

There have been eight head coaches for the Lightning franchise. The team's first head coach was Terry Crisp, who coached for five seasons. John Tortorella, the only American to head coach the team, is the franchise's all-time leader for the most regular-season games coached (535), the most regular-season game wins (239), the most regular-season points (552), the most playoff games coached (45), and the most playoff-game wins (24). Tortorella is the only coach to have won the Prince of Wales Trophy, the Stanley Cup, and to have been awarded the Jack Adams Award with the Lightning, all of which happened in the 2003–04 season. Rick Paterson, Steve Ludzik, Rick Tocchet and Guy Boucher have spent their entire NHL head coaching careers with the Lightning. Guy Boucher has been the head coach of the Lightning since the 2010–11 season.

Key

#	Number of coaches
GC	Games coached
W	Wins = 2 points
L	Losses = 0 points
T	Ties = 1 point
OT	Overtime/shootout losses = 1 point
PTS	Points
Win%	Winning percentage
*	Spent entire NHL head coaching career with the Lightning

Coaches

Note: Statistics are correct through the end of the 2010–11 season.

#	Name	Term	Regular season						Playoffs				Achievements	Reference
			GC	W	L	T/OT	PTS	Win%	GC	W	L	Win%
1	Terry Crisp	1992–1997	391	142	204	45	329	.421	6	2	4	.333
2	Rick Paterson*	1997	6	0	6	0	0	.000	—	—	—	—
3	Jacques Demers	1997–1999	147	34	96	17	85	.289	—	—	—	—
4	Steve Ludzik*	1999–2001	121	31	67	23	85	.351	—	—	—	—
5	John Tortorella	2001–2008	535	239	222	74	552	.516	45	24	21	.533	2003–04 Prince of Wales Trophy winner 2003–04 Jack Adams Award winner 2004 Stanley Cup championship
6	Barry Melrose	2008	16	5	7	4	14	.438	—	—	—	—
7	Rick Tocchet*	2008–2010	148	53	69	26	132	.446	—	—	—	—
8	Guy Boucher*	2010–present	82	46	25	11	103	.628	18	11	7	.611

Notes

• ^a A running total of the number of coaches of the Lightning. Thus, any coach who has two or more separate terms as head coach is only counted once.
• ^b Before the 2005–06 season, the NHL instituted a penalty shootout for regular season games that remained tied after a five-minute overtime period, which prevented ties.
• ^c Each year is linked to an article about that particular NHL season.

References

General

• "Tampa Bay Lightning Coach Register". Hockey-Reference.com. Sports Reference LLC. http://www.hockey-reference.com/teams/TBL/coaches.html. Retrieved 2008-12-21. 

Specific