The Boston Bruins have announced tonight that they have relieved Bruce Cassidy of his duties as head coach. Cassidy had been the Bruins’ head coach since 2017-18 and led the team to the playoffs in each season he coached, including a run to Game Seven of the Stanley Cup Final in 2019. Bruins GM Don Sweeney issued the following statement as part of the announcement:
Today I informed Bruce Cassidy that I was making a head coaching change. After 14 years working with Bruce, this was an extremely difficult decision. I want to thank and acknowledge Bruce for all his work and success with the Bruins organization. His head coaching record for the Bruins is impressive, and we are appreciative of Bruce both professionally and personally. After taking some time to fully digest everything, I felt that the direction of our team for both this season and beyond would benefit from a new voice. I want to wish Bruce, Julie, Shannon and Cole much success as a family and with their future opportunities.
This move is a genuinely surprising one, although there have been some hints of simmering unhappiness in the Bruins’ organization that may not have been seen by observers outside of the Boston market. The Athletic’s Fluto Shinzawa covered the disconnect on offensive philosophy between Cassidy and Sweeney, and further reported that the team’s management had turned up the heat on Cassidy. While at the time some may have looked at Shinzawa’s reports and seen the normal, expected reaction of a team reeling from a difficult playoff exit and not any indication of any looming changes, it’s now clear that his work was foreshadowing the major change that was just announced.
For some, there is a sense of great confusion regarding this firing, and such feelings are definitely reasonable. Cassidy’s ability as one of the league’s top coaches in not up for debate. He led a Bruins team that had stagnated near the end of former coach Claude Julien’s tenure back to the top of the NHL’s pecking order, coming within a single win of capturing the Stanley Cup in 2019. Cassidy took the reigns of a team ready to compete and navigated the challenges of managing a team with such established, veteran stars in order to deliver competitive, playoff hockey year after year.
Cassidy finishes his Bruins tenure with a 245-108 record in the regular season and a 36-37 record in the playoffs. Cassidy had one year remaining on his contract, per TSN’s Chris Johnston.
With this firing, the Bruins enter one of the most competitive coaching markets in recent memory. As part of their announcement, the Bruins stated that they would be beginning their coaching search “immediately,” and that Sweeney would be running the search process. Fellow contending teams such as the Vegas Golden Knights and Dallas Stars are among the clubs in search of a new coach, and the number of teams the Bruins will be competing with for any desired candidate is six. It’s still too early to know exactly which direction the Bruins will go with their next head coach, but seeing as the team still intends to compete next season with their core of Brad Marchand, David Pastrnak, Charlie McAvoy, and Patrice Bergeron (should he opt to re-sign instead of retire) it’s easy to connect them with the veteran coaches already on the market such as Barry Trotz or Paul Maurice.
For Cassidy, this development is definitely an unfortunate one, of course, but also one that could represent a major opportunity. Cassidy immediately joins Trotz as one of the top names on the coaching market, and he is in a position to join another team at a time when his stock as a coach is sky-high. The 2020 Jack Adams Award winner will definitely have a multitude of suitors this offseason and could even choose to wait until the next cycle if a break is what he desires. As previously mentioned, Cassidy has a year remaining on his contract so, financially speaking, there is no rush for him to accept a new job.
There is a sentiment among some that Cassidy’s firing is proof of his role as the “fall guy” for the Bruins’ front office in the face of the team’s inability to win a second Stanley Cup since 2011. Ty Anderson of The Sports Hub detailed that line of thinking, stating that the Bruins’ problems lay more in their personnel than their coaching. With Cassidy now fired, the blame for any struggles the Bruins face from this point forward will now be more easily targeted at the team’s front office. Sweeney and the rest of the Bruins’ brass seemingly have the full faith of ownership, but with Cassidy gone the heat they face gets turned up.
With a new coach needed and their captain out of a contract, this summer could be one of major changes for the Bruins’ roster and should be one of major consequence for what remains of this era of Bruins hockey.
Wait WHAT?
But yet Don Sweeney still is employed? Absolute joke!!!
Wrong move. Jeremy Jacobs is clueless. Fire Don Sweeney I stead
Ya, this Neely/Sweeney combo needs to go. Two best friends running a hockey franchise is a terrible recipe and the roster consistently is filled with holes despite some team friendly contracts. Just imagine the dumpster fire this team will be when pasta and Marchand don’t accept $6m a year contracts and with a brutal drafting track record I cannot believe this tandem is still running the team. Good luck Bruce, you will be missed.
this is a huuuuuge mistake
Jesus Christ. Cassidy has one of the highest winning percentages of any coach in NHL history. (If you counted only his time with the Bruins, it would be THE highest percentage in history.) Who in the merry hell could they POSSIBLY get who’d be an *improvement*?
First thing first this is the dumbest thing I’ve seen in a long time and they better not bring Sweeney back because technically his contract is up at the end of the Stanley Cup
As for the team they’d be lucky if they make the playoffs next yr with Marchand & McAvoy recovering from surgery’s sum say Nov or Dec return dates and with PB37 not sure what he wants to do next season and less the 3m in cap space plus a horrible D crew and a pathetic Hall the only 2 things to be hopefully for are Pastrnak (who struggled this yr) and Swayman
Ouch. Hard to see how you could possibly blame Cassidy for this team’s faults, but at least it’s early enough for him to be considered for one of the other current openings.
Sweeney should have gone before Cassidy.
My hot take
Bergeron and company didn’t like him and it’s maybe the only way to get him to re-sign
Zboril, DeBrusk, Dude whose name I don’t need to bother remembering how to spell.
Over Barzal, Connor and Chabot. Not blowing the McAvoy pick aside, it didn’t get better from there.
Signed Nick Foligno.
Let Chara walk.
The ONLY decent thing Sweeney has done in Boston was hiring Cassidy. All time scapegoating.
Not re-upping on giving Chara a regular shift anymore was a solid move by Sweeney. The Hall trade wasn’t awful. Letting Krug go for nothing and then giving up a haul for Lindholm and signing him to an 8 year deal wasn’t great. Sweeney has definitely been a mixed bag, but the Chara move was smart and unsentimental.
If he had brought in anyone to replace what Chara brought, maybe.
Their D corps is tiny and doesn’t bring a level of offense commensurate with that size. They have no bite. No jam.
If you don’t actually upgrade them, getting rid of older players in decline doesn’t automatically make you better.
Can’t remember Hall’s term and AAV. Obviously not his worst move.
But, I can’t think of any reason to say “we must keep Sweeney because we can’t do better.”
Who on their D is tiny? Forbort? Lindholm? Carlo? 3 of their regular D are over 6’3”. Grzelyck is under 6 feet and that’s it. Who are talking about that is small that skates in their top 6?
Chara brought size and leadership to Washington and the Islanders as 6th/7th defenseman the last two years. Those weren’t attributes that the Bruins were missing.
McAvoy, Reilly, Clifton, Grzelcyk all 6 foot even or under. So, more than half of their D. And Lindholm only uses his size for his reach.
No bite. No jam.
They are soft as a pillow.
Four of their D were in the top 50 for hits including 2 of the 4 you just mentioned. Reilly is 6’2” and McAvoy is 6’1”.
Capfriendly has them at 6’0…except they do have Reilly at 6’1.
And some guys compile love taps as hits to pad their stats. It’s not a tough defense to play against.
If you are content with the defensive structure of the Bruins, though, more power to you.
Now it gets good. Actually it already started. Bruins fans will pile, pretending to have hockey knowledge. They will tell us that this is a good move. They will tell us that it is a bad move. They will tell us what should have been done and what should be done. They they will yell and scream at each other. Yes, they are fun that way! Play on.
Don’t fans of all teams do this? OTOH, I see your point. I mean who ever heard of fans giving opinions on a comment section of a sports article. I expect to hear crickets after a long term coach was fired. Definitely looking forward to your next post
Bruins fans, and Boston folks in general, just tend to play the know-it-all card with a bit more of a loudmouth flair than most. It’s almost like they believe that the success of the local teams makes them smarter – a rather laughable concept that is fun when we can watch it play out in real time.
Nice to see Charlie Jacobs staying mute-get a set of balls & be an owner instead of daddy’s errand boy
That’s what most owners do nowadays. Unless their teams are successful, they avoid the public. Moreover, they are loathe to fire their GMs. When they do they have to get their hands dirty finding replacements which places them under the public eye.
And beyond that, don’t most fans whine their backsides off when the owners get obviously, publicly hands on? (Unless the team wins a championship, of course, but ONLY for so long as they do.)
Man, wish the Kraken were hiring
love it…, turmoil in Beantown!
next they will hire Blashill!
Oh gosh no.
I understand why you feel this way. No other city has experienced as glorious an era in sports as the greater Boson area has had since 2001. I expect it to continue after the Cs beat the Warriors in the Finals.
And we expect to watch you and your clan pretend that you are part of the teams that are winning.
The years from 1977 to 2000 brought 2 Super Bowls, 5 Stanley Cups and 6 World Series titles to NY – a total of 13 championships.
Your era has 12, and neither the Sox, Pats nor Bruins will win in the next two years. So if the Celtics pull this off, which is unlikely, Boston will merely be tied with NY’s greatest era.
Great run but not the best.
That’s a bit disingenuous. Because New York has a grand total of 8 teams in the 4 major sports, Boston only has 4. The 5 Stanley Cups you mention are 4 won by the Islanders, and 1 by the Rangers. Not a fair comparison.
Horrendous.
I thought they would keep him till about christmas. Then blame him for bad start next year do to injuries
Crazy. In recent years we see teams firing the likes of Gallant, Trotz, and Cassidy and you just shake your head. It amazes me that organizations always think the grass is greener when they have really fine coaches. Change for change’ sake is dumb. I see Boston going backwards next season.
Awful decision. Sweeney needs to be fired
Some team will get a good coach in Cassidy. Not sure who could get a better result from that roster in Boston.
Vegas just said…. thank you for our next Coach Mr Sweeney.
Let me say I think BC is a really good coach, but I also agree that a Change was needed not based on the Regular Season results, but the playoff results…. I hope they have a game plan in place for his replacement… not interested in any retreads..