Rick Tocchet has plenty of NHL coaching experience, including his most recent two-and-a-half-season stint with the Canucks, but that didn’t stop him from feeling a bit intimidated by the task of serving as an assistant coach at the 4 Nations Face-Off last February.
Working alongside Bruce Cassidy, Peter DeBoer and Misha Donskov on Jon Cooper’s staff, Tocchet found it a new challenge to coach such a star-studded roster from top to bottom, which included the likes of Connor McDavid, Sidney Crosby, Mitch Marner and Nathan MacKinnon.
Joining Dimitri Filipovic and Thomas Drance on the latest episode of Sportsnet's The Hockey PDOcast on Friday, the 2024 Jack Adams Trophy winner shared some of his thoughts on the opportunity to coach at the 4 Nations.
"I was a little intimidated, you know, and I'm usually not an intimidated guy, like I'm pretty confident in myself. But I remember the first couple of days, I just kept my mouth shut and kind of just observed," said Tocchet.
"You know what I learned? Those guys want to be coached. Connor McDavid wants to be coached. Sidney Crosby wants to be coached. I mean, you can't feel intimidated around them."
Further elaborating on coaching the Canadian squad, which won the 4 Nations Face-Off after an overtime victory over the U.S. in the championship game, Tocchet explained how the relationship with players ended up being a two-way street, with both sides learning from each other.
"I remember about my fourth day, we actually did the Dallas d-zone coverage, where you crack down on the strong side, and, you know, Dallas does that, I don't do that, and Butch (Bruce Cassidy) doesn't, Coop (Jon Cooper) does a little bit. So it was my job to teach that, and Sid would come up to me and go, 'Hey Toch, so how do we...' He was actually asking me about it, so I had to have the answers for him. I got to be ready for that stuff, so I felt I learned a lot, to make sure that I'm coaching and it's OK to be wrong, or it's OK to get (something wrong).
"I might say something, and they're like, 'Well, Toch, should it be this way?' And I'm like, 'Oh man, you're right, it could be that way.' So you can't be afraid to be vulnerable, but you also can't be intimidated because these guys want the answers and they want to be coached. That's the one thing about these high-level guys, it's not like I remember back when some of these superstar guys were like, 'Leave me alone, I got it.' Not these guys. They want to be taught. And I thought that was something that really enlightened me when I was in the 4 Nations."
Tocchet, who will begin his first year as head coach of the Philadelphia Flyers this fall, will likely continue to bring that insight with him — and possibly to Team Canada at the 2026 Winter Olympics next February, if he secures an assistant role under Cooper once again.
