Canada Enters 4 Nations With Best Coaching Staff

Tampa Bay Lightning head coach Jon Cooper faces a tremendous challenge at the upcoming 4 Nations Face-Off. Tabbed as the head coach of Team Canada, a gold medal is the expectation and anything aside from that will be considered a failure.

It's a good thing then that the Lightning coach leads what is unquestionably the best staff at the 4 Nations Face-Off. And that advantage is just another reason why Canada is a heavy favorite at the international tournament.

Joining Cooper on his staff are four veteran coaches with an overwhelming amount of experience, victories and championships at various levels: Bruce Cassidy of the Vegas Golden Knights, Rick Tocchet of the Vancouver Canucks, Peter DeBoer of the Dallas Stars and Misha Donskov, also of the Stars.

Cassidy coached the Golden Knights to a Stanley Cup in 2023, and his staff included Donskov as one of the assistant coaches. Tocchet was an assistant coach for the Pittsburgh Penguins during their back-to-back Cup wins in 2016 and 2017. DeBoer has yet to hoist the Stanley Cup as a head coach, but he's taken multiple teams to the Finals and could possibly do that again this year in Dallas.

One other distinct advantage Canada has entering the tournament is their Player Relations Advisor, Ryan Getzlaf. The former captain of the Anaheim Ducks is a current employee for Hockey Canada, and he's a pivotal bridge between the players on the team and the management staff.

Getzlaf also has experience capturing a gold medal. He was a big piece of the 2010 Winter Olympics team when Canada won the gold in front of their home crowd. His experience and insight will be a huge benefit to this team with gigantic expectations in front of them.

It's understandable to argue that coaching isn't valuable in a tournament structured like this. With the amount of skill on the ice at all times, how much of the minutiae will the staff be able to inact and implement? It's a fair criticism, but that would diminish the hockey intelligence and accomplishments behind the bench for Canada. Cooper is arguably the top coach in the NHL, and along with his first-rate assistants, they make up the best staff in the entire 4 Nations Face-Off.