Detroit — In his first season as Michigan State’s hockey coach in 2022, Adam Nightingale heard from Team USA general manager John Vanbiesbrouck that he wanted him to coach a World Junior team at some point.
“I just said to him, ‘Hey, I’m never going to ask you to do it. I have too much respect for the position,’” Nightingale told The Detroit News. “I don’t think you ask to be this coach.”
Four years later, Nightingale finally gets his turn to coach Team USA at the 2027 World Junior Championship in Alberta. He and the Americans held their opening practices of roster evaluation Wednesday at Little Caesars Arena’s Belfor Training Center.
It looked a whole lot like Munn Ice Arena as two dozen of the top under-20 players in the country went through the same battle drills and whiteboard sessions as the three-time Big Ten champion Spartans. This time, those players are making their case to play for something even greater: December’s USA squad. Even in July, it’s a competitive fight.
“There’s a lot of excitement. These guys, give them a ton of credit,” Nightingale said after practice as sweat-soaked players shuffled past for more workouts. “You earn an opportunity to come try out for the team, and I thought they did really well today. I think we worked on some things that we gotta be great at, but it was fun being out there.”
Nightingale and Team USA are holding two practices and a Friday night intrasquad scrimmage to prepare for the World Junior Summer Showcase in Windsor, which starts Sunday and will pit the Americans against the top prospects from Sweden, Finland and Canada over the course of the week.
This is only part of the evaluation process, but it’s still an important one. The goals for Nightingale and his staff are twofold: establish an identity as a team, then find who fits.
“Our job as the coaching staff is to make that identity clear, and then the player’s job is to play to that identity,” Nightingale said. “And this is one part of the evaluation process. The start of the season will be part of it. There might be some kids that aren’t even at the camp that make the team.”
Some of those players are quite familiar to both Team USA and to Nightingale. Michigan’s Asher Barnett is one of six returners from last year’s World Junior team, alongside UM teammate Will Horcoff and Michigan State forward Ryker Lee. Chase Reid, an incoming Michigan State freshman, is also in that group.
“I think World Juniors is definitely another tier than everything else that I’ve competed in,” Barnett said. “It’s the biggest tournament I’ve ever played in. So just to be on that stage is definitely different and you can’t take it for granted. There’s a lot of guys at multiple positions so everyone is always fighting for it.”
Local college hockey ties at the camp include Barnett, Horcoff, Drew Schock, Cole McKinney and J.P. Hurlbert from Michigan; Lee, Sean Barnhill, Reid, Tommy Bleyl, Nick Bogas, Jack Hextall, Cullen Potter, Brooks Rogowski and Mason West.
Detroit Red Wings draft picks Hurlbert, Victor Plante and Brent Solomon are also on the Summer Showcase roster.
Coming back to Little Caesars Arena is a bit of a homecoming for Nightingale, who served as the Detroit Red Wings’ video coach from 2017 to 2019 and assistant coach for the 2019-20 season. Before that, he was with Buffalo as a video coach in 2016-17.
“It’s great to be back,” Nightingale said. “Thankful that they opened it up to us and really gave us full access to the building. I’m super appreciative.”
Nightingale’s staff also reflects those early days. Michigan State associate head coach Jared DeMichiel is on staff, and so is strength and conditioning coach Will Morlock. Shattuck St. Mary’s coach Tom Ward is on the staff, too, with all his ties to generations of stars like Sidney Crosby, Nathan MacKinnon and Macklin Celebrini over the years. Ward also shaped some coaching talent: Back in 2008, he gave Nightingale his first coaching job.
“He and I went to Buffalo with the Sabres together for a year,” Nightingale said. “I really became close with him there, where we sat next to each other on the plane and talked a lot of hockey. But yeah, a ton of respect for what he’s done. You talk about development. He’s won a World Junior gold. He’s been to multiple World Juniors. So his experience is going to be big-time for our staff.”
So is that of Dan Bylsma, the former NHL head coach (and Grand Haven native) who hired Nightingale to his first NHL job with those Buffalo Sabres. They also overlapped when Bylsma was an assistant coach for Detroit from 2018 to 2021. He served as the Seattle Kraken’s coach two years ago but spent last season out of the league.
“You talk about a Stanley Cup winner, an NHL head coach, the Olympic coach, to have an opportunity for our guys to be around a coach like that is pretty special,” Nightingale said.
All those coaches shape a roster trying to bounce back from last year’s medal-less run in 2026’s World Junior championship in Minnesota. Before that, Team USA won back-to-back golds with Denver’s David Carle as head coach in 2024 and 2025. It’s a similar identity to those teams that Nightingale made mention of Wednesday.
“We want to play on our toes. We want to pressure the puck,” he said. “When we have it, we want to work to keep it. And so I think when USA Hockey is at its best, it plays to a clear identity, and that’s our job to make sure the guys do it.”
cearegood@detroitnews.com
@ConnorEaregood
This article originally appeared on The Detroit News: MSU’s Adam Nightingale sets ‘identity’ for U.S. at World Junior camp
Reporting by Connor Earegood, The Detroit News / The Detroit News
USA TODAY Network via Reuters Connect
By Connor Earegood, The Detroit News | USA TODAY Network
