LAS VEGAS (AP) – Bruce Cassidy struggled so badly in his first NHL teaching job with Washington that it knocked him out of the league for greater than a decade.
Cassidy coached within the junior ranks and the minors earlier than getting a second likelihood with Boston. When he was fired from that job, he was out of labor a grand whole of every week earlier than the Vegas Golden Knights employed him.
Less than a full calendar 12 months since placing pen to paper with Vegas, Cassidy and the Golden Knights have been on the verge of profitable the Stanley Cup going into Game 5 on Tuesday evening. It could be the primary championship for the franchise and the veteran head coach.
“The rewarding part is seeing it all come together at the right time,” Cassidy mentioned after Vegas beat Florida to take a 3-1 lead within the ultimate. “Every coach in this league works hard to prepare their team, puts in a lot of time and effort, sacrifice away from your family at times, so, that’s the rewarding part. And then to get your name on the Cup is the ultimate reward.”
Almost twenty years in the past, when Cassidy was dumped lower than a season and a half into his tenure with the Capitals, it appeared unprecedented that he’d get one other NHL job, not to mention be on the doorstep of guiding a staff to a championship. George McPhee – now Vegas’ president of hockey operations – employed Cassidy in 2002, then fired him 17 losses in 25 video games into the 2003-04 season.
“Most guys go through what he went through and you’d never hear from them again,” former Capitals goaltender Olie Kolzig mentioned in 2019.
Instead, Cassidy paid his dues, first as an assistant in Chicago, then teaching Kingston within the Ontario Hockey League. He returned to the professionals as an assistant with the American Hockey League’s Providence Bruins, was promoted to go coach and bought again within the NHL on Claude Julien’s workers in Boston by 2016.
“Give the guy credit: He came back from the dead,” mentioned retired defenseman Colby Cohen, who performed beneath Cassidy in Providence. “He grinded his way through, and he developed players. It really is impressive.”
Cassidy was a midseason substitute for Julien early in 2017 and coached the Bruins to the playoffs six seasons in a row earlier than a first-round exit final 12 months prompted Boston to let him go. When the Golden Knights needed a coach with profitable expertise, they employed Cassidy.
“If you have a team, a veteran team that is ready for winning, I’m not sure there’s a better coach right now in hockey than him,” Cohen mentioned. “He is good at what he does. His ability to adjust in game, and his ability to see what’s happening within a game and change on the fly or or pull a different lever – changing lines, getting a certain matchup changing the forecheck, changing neutral zone sets – if you do it, you are successful as a team.”
With their new coach, the Golden Knights gained 13 of their first 15 video games and completed atop the Western Conference regardless of goaltending accidents and different adversity which may have knocked them off track – prefer it did final season, prompting Peter DeBoer’s firing as coach.
“He thinks the game really well,” Vegas main scorer Jonathan Marchessault mentioned of Cassidy. “He kept us humble and kept us also the mindset of just one game at a time and don’t think too far and stay in the moment. I think that’s been one of the big things for us this year.”
Vegas cruised by the primary two rounds of the playoffs, beating Winnipeg in 5 video games and getting previous Connor McDavid, Leon Draisaitl and Edmonton to achieve the West ultimate. That is probably the place his greatest teaching of the 12 months got here the evening earlier than Game 6 in opposition to Dallas. The Golden Knights, as soon as up 3-0, had misplaced two in a row and have been getting ready to falling aside.
Cassidy gathered gamers for a gathering to crystallize for them what was at stake.
“It was kind of like, ‘All right, that’s enough, let’s close this out,’” heart Chandler Stephenson recalled. “So, we had our best game of the playoffs.”
Better could possibly be forward given Cassidy’s capability to organize a staff for essential conditions – like locking up a Stanley Cup championship.
“That would be the ultimate reward for me is to be part of a team that won as a team and played as a team,” Cassidy mentioned.
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AP NHL playoffs: https://apnews.com/hub/stanley-cup and https://twitter.com/AP_Sports
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