He is considered to be a "top tier head coach" because he won Cups with a team that had 4 sure fire HOFs on it and quite possibly a 5th, not to mention a damn good supporting cast. And even with that he let a vastly inferior Islanders team take him to the brink twice. There are a lot of coaches in the league who could have taken the talent Coop had to work with to Cups and probably with greater ease than he did. Not to mention the pass he got in meeting MTL in the final because of COVID. Not saying Coop is a bad coach, not at all, but I have never believed for one second that he is some uber special coach either. He should be as expendable as any coach if the circumstance warrants it and to me, we're pretty close to that. I've said it before and I'll say it again, there is reason the guy has never won COY and that is because the writers recognize that he has always had a ton to work with. Now he doesn't have as much and if he is really as great as the press clippings say he is let's see him do more with less. That would be the measure of greatness, not winning with guys most qualified NHL coaches could win with.
Coulda woulda shoulda won more cups, who knows? It certainly isn't fact. Coopers got quite the resume, even before he reached the NHL, and then we went on deep playoff runs basically every year until recently.
Let's entertain the idea that Cooper isn't really contributing anything positive and is just holding the roster together that could win on its own, that still makes him Joe Torre-esque.
With all that being said, even Torre was fired. Cooper isn't untouchable, but he deserves credit and a little bit of rope. I think his job is firmly secure until it's time to rebuild, at the very least.
He's not on the hot seat while we are making the playoffs IMO, he's the guy JBB picked.