Latvia's roster at the World Championship has very little NHL experience. There's Sabres forward Zemgus Girgensons, who has 277 games in the show under his belt. Then there's Kaspars Daugavins, who skated in 91 games with the Senators and Bruins before heading to the KHL.
That's it.
However, behind the bench, Latvia boasts 463 NHL wins, six division titles, and one Stanley Cup championship. Head coach Bob Hartley can take credit for that.
Yes, the same Bob Hartley who has coached 944 games in the NHL with the Colorado Avalanche, Atlanta Thrashers, and most recently, the Calgary Flames.
He's had success everywhere he's been. He won a cup in Colorado, is the only coach ever to say they brought the Thrashers to the playoffs, and took a Flames team to the second round of the playoffs in 2014-15 that frankly had no right being there.
Hartley was let go by the Flames after the 2015-16 season. He hasn't coached in the NHL since, but has instead found success coaching the Latvian national team. So far at the World Championship, Latvia has three wins and two losses and sits in fourth place out of eight teams in Group A.
How the club has performed against superior hockey nations is what should grab the attention of NHL clubs looking to fill a head coaching vacancy.
(Photo courtesy: Action Images)
In its first two games at the World Championship, Latvia defeated Denmark and Slovakia - two teams that may not be powerhouses, but also aren't pushovers - by a combined scored of 6-1. They then unsurprisingly beat Italy, but then gave both Sweden and USA a run for their money.
The Latvians lost to an experienced Swedish team just 2-0, and most recently dropped their matchup with the United States 5-3 (which included an empty-netter). Hartley and the Latvians can certainly hold their heads high, even though they blew a 3-1 lead in the latter game.
What Hartley has shown in Cologne, Germany is that he can take a far less talented team and remain competitive with some of the best hockey nations in the world, thanks to his defensive style of coaching.
Considering his resume, ability to adapt, and willingness to stuff his pride and coach a country that only has 19(!) total hockey rinks, he is deserving of another NHL gig.
The Buffalo Sabres and the Florida Panthers are the only two teams with head coaching vacancies at the moment, but they would be smart to, at the very least, bring Hartley in for an interview.
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