The Boston Bruins
have fired coach Bruce Cassidy, who led them to the Stanley Cup Final in
2019, the best record in the league the next year and at least 100
points in each of his four full non-pandemic seasons behind the bench.
Bruins
general manager Don Sweeney announced the move Monday night, three
weeks after the team’s first-round playoff loss to the Carolina
Hurricanes.
“This
was an extremely difficult decision,” Sweeney said in a statement. “His
head coaching record for the Bruins is impressive, and we are
appreciative of Bruce both professionally and personally.”
The
Bruins made the playoffs in each of Cassidy’s six seasons since he took
over for Claude Julien in February 2017. He coached them within one
victory of the Stanley Cup in 2019 against the St. Louis Blues.
But
the team hasn’t gotten out of the second round since then, including a
Game 7 loss to Carolina this spring. Afterward, team president Cam Neely
said: “We have to look at making some changes as far as how we play and
the way we do some of the things.”
“I
think Bruce is a fantastic coach,” Neely said at his end-of-season
media availability. “He’s brought a lot of success to this organization.
I like him as a coach. So, we’ll see where it goes. But I do think we
need to make some changes.”
On Monday, Neely delivered the verdict.
“Bruce
has been a fantastic coach and has helped this team win many games and
achieve success over his tenure behind the bench,” he said in a
statement. “I have the utmost confidence in Don to conduct a thorough
search to identify the best candidate that is going to help our team
reach its full potential.”
The
Jack Adams Award winner as the NHL’s top coach in 2020, Cassidy becomes
a top candidate for vacancies in Philadelphia, Chicago, Winnipeg, Vegas
and Detroit. Others may open because of his availability.
After
struggling for two seasons with Washington in his first NHL
head-coaching job, from 2002-04, Cassidy worked his way back to the NHL
with the Bruins’ American Hockey League affiliate in Providence.
Cassidy,
57, took over in Boston from Julien, who led the team to the 2011
Stanley Cup championship and back to the final two years later. With the
core of Zdeno Chara, Patrice Bergeron, Brad Marchand and Tuukka Rask,
Cassidy brought the team to the cusp of another title in 2019 before
losing to St. Louis in seven games.
During
the pandemic-interrupted 2019-20 season the Bruins amassed 100 points
in 70 games and claimed the Presidents Trophy for the league’s best
record. But after Rask left the postseason bubble to tend to a family
emergency, the team lost in the second round.
After
another second-round exit last year, the Bruins qualified for this
year’s postseason with a wild-card berth and did not make it out of the
first round.
The
team has since announced that Marchand, the top scorer, and Charlie
McAvoy, the No. 1 defenseman, will miss the first two months of next
season while recovering from surgery. Bergeron, who won his record fifth
Selke Trophy as the league’s top defensive forward, is unsigned and has
not committed to playing another season; he is also recovering from
surgery.
In all, Cassidy was 245-108-46 in Boston and is 292-155-9-7 in his NHL coaching career.
By JIMMY GOLEN
AP Hockey Writer Stephen Whyno contributed to this report.