After Team Canada’s 4 Nations championship win, head coach Jon Cooper discussed the meaning of the victory for the country, re-uniting Mitch Marner and Connor McDavid with the tournament on the line, Nathan MacKinnon and Sidney Crosby’s leadership, and what the win means when looking ahead to the 2026 Winter Olympics.
What did you learn about Connor McDavid over the last 10 days or so that you didn’t already know?
Cooper: I am going to say this about Connor, but I am going to say it about the group. I don’t like to say second, third, and fourth line — everybody has a role on the team — but fourth-liners play differently than first-liners. Connor McDavid is clearly one of — if not the — best players in the world, and I can say this about all these guys: They all played with their talent, but they all played with the mentality of fourth-liners. They did.
The egos, there were none. Guys like Connor, who could stroll in and say, “Give me the ice, give me this, and give me that,” never (did). When you have leaders and players of his talent cheering as loud for the guys playing in front of him while he is not on the ice, it kind of says something about how special he is.
That is what was special about this team.
You had Mitch Marner and McDavid together to start the tournament, then you broke them up, and then you put them back together with the game on the line tonight. It worked at the end. What were you thinking in making those moves throughout the tournament?
Cooper: When you come to these short tournaments, you are trying to put players in positions to succeed.
The first move — Brayden Point has been a center all of his life, and I thought putting Point with McDavid was going to help the speed factor. It was just about if Point was going to be comfortable playing the wing, and he sure was. He proved that.
With Stone there, I thought the line had great chemistry, but ultimately, in the end, as the game went on, Mitch had legs. That kid can make plays. As we saw tonight, he just needed one chance to make a play, and he did.
It comes down to a gut feeling on how the guys are going. I felt those three guys could do it, and they did.
Nate MacKinnon won the tournament MVP. How did his performance impact what the team was able to accomplish?
Cooper: Again, we talked about McDavid’s selflessness, and MacKinnon was the same. They just had this attitude that it was all about the team. Nothing individual ever came up, like, “Put me out here,” or, “Give me this moment.” They just cheered for the guys who were in that moment. When you get your chance, he delivered.
To see the chemistry he and Sid had and doing the things they did — they are just special players. Mack was just all about winning. It didn’t matter what was going to be done. I can’t say enough about him.
When we needed him to deliver, he did. That is what makes special players great.
Can you sense what this win meant for all of Canada for a number of reasons? The World Junior teams had lost in the quarterfinals in back-to-back years. There were the political tensions boiling over. You try not to have it enter the room before a game like this, but now that it is over, can you sense the magnitude of the victory?
Cooper: I just hope Canada is proud because every player in that room is proud to be Canadian. Yeah, did we need a win? Not only our team but Canada needed a win. The players bore that on their shoulders. They took it seriously.
This one was different. It wasn’t a win for themselves. This was a win for 40-plus million people. The guys knew it, and they delivered.
It won’t be the exact same team, but as you look towards the Olympics in Italy, how important was it to get this group together to compete?
Cooper: To me, it is immeasurable what has gone on here. To be around this group and understand who we have — how they can play, what they can do, and building relationships, which I think is a massive underscored part that goes into it — puts us that much further ahead.
It was talked about tonight, how much this tournament will help us moving forward as a group and myself personally. It was a massive success all the way around. For moving on to Milan, it was a big step forward.
One of your messages to the team in this tournament was to, “Play the right way — the Canadian way.” What does that mean to you?
Cooper: When the puck is on your stick, if you were to do a stopwatch, for the best players, it is 10, 15, or 20 seconds in a game. What are you doing the time the puck is not on your stick? Those are the selfless acts that go into the superstars who are used to having it on their sticks.
They did all of the right things. They checked. You have to check. For this group of players, with the talent level they have, to do what they did away from the puck is the Canadian way. That is walking into a restaurant and opening the door for someone else to walk in first. That is the Canadian way. We couldn’t be more proud.
Sidney Crosby has been in these situations before and has scored a golden goal. Did he say or do anything to benefit the group with his experience?
Cooper: He has done so much for our group, right? I’ll save that for the book one day. What an incredible leader.
Even when you show him situations he was put in on the video, maybe he could’ve done something different, and he’d be like, “I think the team should see this. They should see me making an error.”
When you think about someone of his stature, he wants players to learn, “Hey, I make mistakes, too, but I want them to see me make mistakes.” That is what leaders do. It is little things like that. You take a step back and go, “Wow, I see why every time he puts the Canadian jersey on, he is standing on the podium a little bit higher than everybody else.”
You had a moment with Jordan Binnington after the winning goal. You stood up for him after the loss to the USA, as a lot of the country questioned if he should be in the net. Take us through his three or four game-saving saves in OT, and the extent to which he shut up some doubters.
Cooper: To be perfectly honest, probably the most scrutinized position going into the tournament was goaltending.
For me, you have your guy, and you are rolling with your guy. I never doubled one ounce about ever pulling him, taking him out of the game, or losing confidence in him because of his gamesmanship and his ability to rise in the big moment.
You can say that one slipped by him in the Sweden game, but you know what he did? He made the big save in overtime. The loss to the U.S. hurt, but it wasn’t the winner-take-all game. When we got the big lead against Finland, and he doesn’t have to really do much for 55 minutes, at the end, he has to help bail us out. He does it.
Even tonight, were there stressful moments for both goalies during the game? Sure there were, but it wasn’t something where if this game wasn’t won in regulation, we were going to sit there and say, “Jordan Binnington saved the game.” When it came to overtime and we needed him to make the saves he’s supposed to, and a few that you’re not, he saved his best for last.
That is what winners do. There wasn’t a chance I wasn’t going to back the winner.
