Detroit Red Wings Hire Derek Lalonde
Another coaching vacancy has been filled. The Detroit Red Wings announced today that they have hired Tampa Bay Lightning assistant coach Derek Lalonde as the 28th head coach in franchise history. Lalonde will be officially introduced to the media tomorrow at 11:00 AM.
Red Wings GM Steve Yzerman gave the following statement on hiring Lalonde:
“I’m very pleased to announce Derek as our new head coach, he has proven himself as an excellent coach at every level and has spent the last four seasons in the National Hockey League as part of a very successful program in Tampa Bay. We feel he is ready to take the next step in his career as the head coach of the Detroit Red Wings.”
Lalonde has been a key member of Jon Cooper’s Tampa Bay Lightning staff since 2018-19. Since hiring Lalonde, the Lightning have gone 192-77-21 with two Stanley Cup championships and a third trip to the final. His run of success in Tampa gives him an extremely strong resume, and he comes to the Red Wings widely regarded as one of the top assistant coaches in the game.
The connection to Detroit here is obvious: GM Steve Yzerman was the architect of Lalonde’s Lightning team and still has deep ties within the organization. As Detroit looks to exit their rebuild and return to contention, Lalonde is the candidate that provides Yzerman with the best combination of familiarity and great qualifications.
Lalonde was last a head coach with the Iowa Wild of the AHL. He spent two seasons coaching in Iowa, going 69-58-25, failing to make the playoffs in either year. Before then, Lalonde had an extremely successful run as a head coach with the USHL’s Green Bay Gamblers, including managing them to a 47-9-4 2011-12 campaign that saw them finish as champions of the USHL.
In Lalonde, the Red Wings are getting an experienced coach who has won championships at multiple levels. After a historic streak of consecutive years making the playoffs, the Red Wings haven’t been back in a while. With a new coach in tow and several up-and-coming stars including Calder Trophy winner Moritz Seider, the future looks bright in Detroit.
Los Angeles Kings Acquire, Extend Kevin Fiala
June 30: The team has now officially announced the seven-year extension, which will carry a cap hit of $7.875MM. CapFriendly reported yesterday that the contract includes a no-movement clause in years 2-4 and a limited no-trade clause in years 5-7.
June 29: The Los Angeles Kings have acquired the restricted free agent rights to winger Kevin Fiala from the Minnesota Wild in exchange for their 2022 first-round selection and defense prospect Brock Faber, per The Athletic’s Michael Russo. Sportsnet’s Elliotte Friedman was the first to report Fiala heading to Southern California.
As confirmed by the league just hours earlier, the Los Angeles selection that the Wild are acquiring will be the 19th overall pick in the 2022 NHL Draft. The Wild now own picks 19 and 24 in the first round.
It’s important to note an extension between the Kings and Fiala still needs to be worked out, but with the Kings having nearly $20MM in projected cap space this summer per CapFriendly (and Fiala having arbitration rights), the contract itself is an eventuality, with TSN’s Chris Johnston reporting there’s a long-term extension in place. Friedman is reporting a cap hit of $7.9MM, and Johnston is reporting a seven-year term.
It’s hard to think that Fiala won’t become a spectacular fit within the Kings organization. The 25-year-old’s 85 points in 2021-22 would have led the Kings by 18, with Anze Kopitar leading them in scoring with 67 points. It’s also hard to think that Fiala won’t join a line with Kopitar (and likely 2022 All-Star Adrian Kempe) as the Kings’ top unit. Suddenly, with a support group behind them that includes Phillip Danault, Viktor Arvidsson, Alex Iafallo, and up-and-comers like Quinton Byfield and Arthur Kaliyev, Los Angeles looks poised to build on last year’s playoff appearance and solidify themselves as real players in the Western Conference. Of note, it’s also a reunion between Fiala and Arvidsson, who both were developed and got their starts with the Nashville Predators.
While it’s no top-five pick like some expected, the Wild get two quality pieces in return for Fiala as well. Faber, a Minnesota native, exploded onto the scene this year as one of the premier two-way defense prospects in the game, notching 14 points in 32 games with the University of Minnesota and getting the call to the United States Olympic team. Just 19 years old, Faber was the 45th overall selection in the 2020 draft by the Kings. The Wild are also likely to receive a high-upside prospect with the 19th overall pick. Some potential selections, according to TSN’s Bob McKenzie’s rankings based on NHL scout surveys, are another Minnesota native in Jimmy Snuggerud (ranked 17th), Czech utility forward Jiri Kulich (ranked 18th), Russian sniper (and cancer survivor) Ivan Miroschnichenko (ranked 19th), sniper and University of Minnesota-Duluth commit Isaac Howard (ranked 20th), or Swedish forwards Liam Ohgren and Noah Ostlund (ranked 21st and 22nd). While none of those likely have the offensive upside of Fiala, combined with the addition of Faber, it seems to be close to fair value at first impression.
Expect this deal to open the floodgates for moves and deals ahead of the 2022 NHL Draft next week.
The Athletic’s Michael Russo was the first to report the full details of the trade.
Chicago Blackhawks Hire Luke Richardson
June 29: TSN’s Pierre LeBrun is reporting that the Blackhawks signed Richardson to a four-year contract. He’ll be the team’s head coach through 2025-26.
June 27: The Blackhawks have made it official, hiring Richardson as their next head coach. General manager Kyle Davidson released a statement:
We are excited having a seasoned coach like Luke join the organization as head coach. Luke shares our vision and goals for the future, and he will have an opportunity to build an environment and culture of high performance, hard work, and high accountability. Throughout the interview process, it became evident that he not only had every quality we were looking for in a head coach, but also is a high-character individual that was perfect to lead this next era of the Chicago Blackhawks.
June 24: The Winnipeg Jets may be waiting on Barry Trotz to make a decision but the Chicago Blackhawks are nearing one of their own. Frank Seravalli of Daily Faceoff tweets that Luke Richardson is expected to be the next head coach of the Blackhawks, and the two sides are putting the finishing touches on a contract. Scott Powers of The Athletic reported earlier today that Richardson, interim head coach Derek King, and Vancouver Canucks assistant Brad Shaw were the three finalists.
Richardson, who has spent the last four seasons as an assistant with the Montreal Canadiens, has long been looked at as a future NHL bench boss, even going back to his playing days. The 53-year-old former defenseman played more than 1,400 games in the league, and almost immediately transitioned onto an NHL coaching staff with the Ottawa Senators in 2009.
With the Blackhawks not expected to contend next season as they head into a complete rebuild, getting an inexperienced (and therefore inexpensive) bench boss always seemed to be the likely move. Richardson has just a handful of games as an NHL head coach–all coming in the 2021 playoffs when Dominique Ducharme was held out with COVID-19.
He does, however, have four years of experience as a head coach in the AHL, and is as well-respected an assistant as you will find around the league. His departure from the Canadiens will leave a substantial hole to fill, as Montreal tries to climb out of the bottom of the league under new head coach Martin St. Louis.
It is not clear what this would mean for King, who was brought up from the minor leagues to replace Jeremy Colliton early in the season. The Blackhawks went 27-33-10 under the interim boss, in his first taste of NHL head coaching. Powers wrote today that it would surprise him if the Rockford IceHogs didn’t stay with Anders Sorensen as head coach, meaning King could be looking for another role somewhere else.
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Florida Panthers Hire Paul Maurice
5:33 pm: The Panthers have made Maurice’s hiring official. TSN’s Pierre LeBrun reports that it’s a three-year deal for Maurice, coming in at just under $4MM per season. In a release announcing the news, general manager Bill Zito gave the following explanation:
At the completion of our season, we began an in-depth examination of all aspects of our team. After taking the appropriate amount of time for analysis, we determined that we needed the perfect fit to continue with the growth of our players and stay on the path for our franchise goals. Paul’s experience and intellect were just what we were looking for and we are thrilled for him to step into the role of head coach.
9:14 am: The Florida Panthers won’t be keeping Andrew Brunette on as head coach after all. Several reports have surfaced including from Darren Dreger of TSN that the Panthers are in the process of hiring Paul Maurice as their next head coach, and that it will be a three-year deal when completed. Pierre LeBrun of The Athletic adds that Brunette could still remain with the organization in some fashion, though Dreger expects him to look for a fresh start.
Maurice, 55, resigned his position as head coach of the Winnipeg Jets in December, noting that the team needed a new voice after nearly a decade there. One of the most experienced coaches in NHL history, Maurice was hired by the Hartford Whalers when he was still just 28 years old and has been behind a bench ever since, racking up 1,685 regular season games in the process.
Despite those decades of coaching though, Maurice doesn’t have a ton of postseason success, having only progressed past the first round on four occasions and missing the playoffs entirely in more than half his seasons behind the bench. His best playoff run came in 2002 when he took the Carolina Hurricanes to the Stanley Cup Final, only to lose in five games to the Detroit Red Wings.
Still, there are few coaches more well-respected around the league than Maurice, and he’ll now be walking into an outstanding opportunity with the Panthers. Florida won the Presidents’ Trophy with a 58-18-6 scoring at a pace rarely seen in the modern game. Four players cracked the 30-goal mark, with captain Aleksander Barkov leading the way with 39 in just 67 games. Jonathan Huberdeau had 115 points to finish second in the Art Ross race, and the Panthers have difference-makers at defense and in net.
That success though is why so many believed Brunette would be given another chance after taking over from Joel Quenneville early in the year. Fifty-one of those 58 wins came under the rookie bench boss, who posted a .720 points percentage in his first go-round.
There were critiques of his ability in the playoffs when going up against Jon Cooper and the Tampa Bay Lightning, who swept them out of the second round, but it was still hard to believe Brunette wouldn’t be given at least another crack at it.
By moving on to Maurice, the management group in Florida has made a clear statement that they believe there is no time to waste in their current window. Notably, Huberdeau and MacKenzie Weegar will be unrestricted free agents after the upcoming season, Sam Reinhart and Anthony Duclair will be the year after that, and Aaron Ekblad, Sam Bennett, and Carter Verhaeghe the year after that.
The 2022-23 season could be the last chance for the entire group to stay intact (or at least reasonably intact), so they’ve taken their shot with an experienced coach to try and take them all the way.
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Winnipeg Jets Exploring Market For Blake Wheeler
The Winnipeg Jets are at a crossroads, after failing to even reach the playoffs in a season they were expecting to contend for the Stanley Cup. The team is without a head coach, has uncertainty regarding the next contract for Pierre-Luc Dubois, and is closing in on the end of long-term deals for two of their most prominent offensive pieces.
Blake Wheeler and Mark Scheifele are both scheduled for unrestricted free agency following the 2023-24 season, and while the latter may not be on the move despite some questionable comments, the team is apparently exploring the market on the former.
Frank Seravalli of Daily Faceoff explains that the Jets have begun to engage with teams on the possibility of moving Wheeler, and points out that the captain’s full no-trade clause will change on July 1, when he will have to submit a five-team list that he would accept a trade to.
Of course, Wheeler will also turn 36 later this summer and despite strong offensive results, has been criticized heavily in recent years for his overall contributions. The 6’5″ winger had just two goals through his first 30 games of this season, by which point the Jets were already well behind the pace and struggling to stay relevant. He did finish with 17 goals and 60 points total in 65 games but had poor defensive metrics once again, and relied heavily on easy deployment to find so much scoring success.
He also comes with a prohibitive $8.25MM cap hit for the next two seasons (though the actual salary owed is a bit lower than that), limiting the number of teams that could justify bringing him on without the Jets retaining some of the money.
Still, in the right situation, he can still be a strong contributor and perhaps be an option for a team looking to push over the top next season. It would be a drastic culture shift to see the team’s captain and long-standing cornerstone leave–Wheeler has been with the franchise since it still played in Atlanta–but there are winds of change blowing in Winnipeg after such a disappointing year.
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Dallas Stars Hire Peter DeBoer
June 21: The team has now officially announced DeBoer as the next head coach of the Stars. While the team did not release financial information or term, LeBrun reports that it is a four-year deal worth $4.25MM per season.
General manager Jim Nill released the following statement:
Pete brings a wealth of experience to our dressing room, and we’re thrilled to name him our next head coach. Every team that he has taken over has not only shown immediate improvement but has been ultra-competitive in the Stanley Cup Playoffs. He has taken five teams to the Conference Finals, and two of those to the Stanley Cup Final, in his 14 years as a head coach. His resume displays the high standards he sets and his ability to get his team to play up to that level consistently. We’re excited to welcome Pete and his family to Dallas.
June 19: A pair of coaching vacancies have been filled in recent days with Vegas and Philadelphia finding their new bench bosses. It appears Dallas is on the verge of doing the same as Sportsnet’s Elliotte Friedman reports (Twitter link) that the Stars are expected to name Peter DeBoer as their new head coach. ESPN’s Greg Wyshynski adds (Twitter link) that an official announcement is not expected to come tonight with Pierre LeBrun of TSN and The Athletic notes (Twitter link) contract terms are still being discussed.
DeBoer was a fairly late entrant into the coaching market this spring as Vegas waited a couple of weeks before making the decision to part ways with him. He had a pretty successful run with the Golden Knights he led the team to a 98-50-12 record in 160 regular season games, good for a .650 points percentage. Vegas also had two good playoff runs with him at the helm as they went 22-17 over that stretch. However, it was the fact that they didn’t make it to the postseason that resulted in his departure with Bruce Cassidy taking over that job on Tuesday.
Meanwhile, the Stars have been on the lookout for their next bench boss for the past month after the team and Rick Bowness mutually agreed to part ways with their assistant coaches also departing. Dallas finished in the top Wild Card spot in 2021-22 (four points ahead of Vegas) and gave Calgary a pretty good run in the first round before ultimately falling in seven games which led to them changing things up.
The fact that the Stars are looking for a win-now coach doesn’t come as much of a surprise as they largely have a veteran core in place with a team that’s built more for the present than the future. Under Bowness, Dallas has consistently been one of the stronger defensive teams in the league but they have also found themselves in the bottom half of the league offensively with Tyler Seguin and Jamie Benn both taking considerable steps back in recent years. Considering both are on the books at a high price tag ($9.5MM for Benn, $9.85MM for Seguin), finding a coach that can coax more out of them offensively would certainly help their chances moving forward.
Dallas GM Jim Nill feels DeBoer is the coach that can bring out more offensive production without drastically compromising their defensive principles. There is some recent cause for optimism on that front based on his time with the Golden Knights as Vegas was in the top half of the NHL in both goals scored and allowed in each of his three seasons with them.
DeBoer sits 27th all-time in games coached at 1,015 and is 26th in wins with 513 and assuming this contract becomes official, he’ll have a chance to improve those numbers on a Stars team that should once again be in the playoff mix in 2022-23. He’ll become the fifth different head coach for Dallas since 2013 when Jim Nill took over with the others being Lindy Ruff, Ken Hitchcock, Jim Montgomery, and Bowness.
Photo courtesy of USA Today Sports Images.
Philadelphia Flyers Officially Name John Tortorella Head Coach
9:02 AM: The Flyers have officially announced the hiring of Tortorella, but did not confirm the financial terms. The Athletic’s Arthur Staple reports that the finalists for the job were Peter DeBoer and former New York Islanders head coach Jack Capuano.
4:25 PM: ESPN’s Kevin Weekes reports that Tortorella’s deal with the Flyers is a four-year, $4MM per year contract.
3:21 PM: After days of it seeming like an eventuality, John Tortorella is expected to officially be named the next head coach of the Philadelphia Flyers. The Athletic’s Charlie O’Connor reported this morning that final negotiations were underway and that an official announcement could come tomorrow, but The Fourth Period’s Anthony Di Marco now reports that an official announcement could come as soon as tonight and that the organization is “moving forward” with Tortorella as their new head coach.
We’ve gotten an unusually extensive amount of reporting on the Tortorella hiring process. It’s been known for a few days now that the team had zeroed in on Tortorella as a candidate and that the hiring was likely, but negotiations between the two sides had not been completed. Now, it seems like that process is done, although it’s unclear whether the terms of the deal will be made public.
Tortorella joins his fifth NHL team as a head coach and his fourth Eastern Conference team, with his one season spent in Vancouver as his lone Western Conference head coaching experience (2013-14). He ranks 13th all-time in games coached (1,383), 14th in wins (673), and has a 2004 Stanley Cup ring with the Tampa Bay Lightning to show for his illustrious career.
After his second gap year in the past decade, Tortorella returns to the NHL with the goal of quickly restoring a competitive team in Philadelphia. Whether that happens is a different story entirely. Of note, in his first entire season as coach of the Columbus Blue Jackets in 2016-17, he took a team that had finished below the .500 mark the previous year to their only 100-point season in franchise history. However, that was a team spearheaded by a list of quality young players, most notably Zach Werenski and Seth Jones on defense, that the Flyers simply don’t have to offer. Nor do they have a goalie with the track record that Sergei Bobrovsky had at that point, who earned his second Vezina trophy that season with a .931 save percentage and 41-17-5 record.
While a healthy Sean Couturier and Ryan Ellis should give the Flyers a large boost next season, Tortorella will be tasked with the job of helping the team navigate their post-Claude Giroux era. He’ll be charged with restoring the ceilings of players like Travis Konecny and Oskar Lindblom up front and continuing the positive development of Joel Farabee. He’ll also need to institute a system that can help Ivan Provorov and Rasmus Ristolainen on the back end after some rough defensive seasons.
None of it will be an easy job in the Metropolitan Division. With the New York Rangers and Carolina Hurricanes poised to dominate again next season, they’ll also have the Blue Jackets and New Jersey Devils as on-the-rise teams to battle with.
Vegas Golden Knights Acquire Shea Weber
On the day that the Vegas Golden Knights introduced their new head coach to their fans, they also completed a major trade. The Montreal Canadiens and Golden Knights have each announced a deal: Shea Weber for Evgenii Dadonov. The Athletic’s Pierre LeBrun confirmed that neither player is being traded with salary retained.
While this trade is a one-for-one deal, it’s anything but simple. Weber, the Canadiens’ captain, is effectively retired due to his injuries and is not expected to ever suit up for another NHL game. One might wonder, then, why the Golden Knights would be interested in acquiring him. But the motivation for the Golden Knights is simple: because Weber is expected to stay on long-term injured reserve for the remainder of the four years left on his contract, his $7.8MM cap hit for each of those years effectively does not count against Vegas’ cap. LTIR is quite a bit more complicated than that in reality, but in easily explainable terms that’s basically what will happen.
So, the Golden Knights rid themselves of Dadonov’s $5MM cap hit, a deal they already attempted to trade at the deadline, in exchange for Weber’s contract that must be placed on LTIR. Teams using LTIR cannot accumulate cap space over the course of a season, meaning the Golden Knights will be harder-pressed to go on a trade deadline spending spree like the New York Rangers were able to do this year thanks to their stockpile of accumulated cap space. But given Vegas’ aggressive use of LTIR in the past it’s likely the team is making this deal assuming they would be using LTIR already, regardless of Weber’s presence.
With all that explained, this trade helps Vegas alleviate the cap crunch that had the potential to wreck their offseason. We previously covered how the Golden Knights were actually above the salary cap, and urgently needed to find a way to clear space. With this trade, the Golden Knights commit themselves to being an “LTIR team” for the remainder of Weber’s contract in order to rid themselves of Dadonov’s cap hit without needing to trade any picks or prospects.
For the Canadiens, GM Kent Hughes had already expressed an interest in moving Weber’s deal, indicating that they were close to a deal with the Arizona Coyotes at the deadline. The Coyotes ended up acquiring Bryan Little‘s contract instead, nixing the possibility of that trade. Now, Hughes has found another avenue to trade Weber’s contract, and instead of needing to trade prospects or draft picks like the Jets needed to trade Little to Arizona, the Canadiens simply needed to take on Dadonov’s unwanted cap hit to facilitate the deal.
In Dadonov, the Canadiens acquire a player with one year left on his contract at a $5MM cap hit. Dadonov was one of Vegas’ better players last year, riding a scorching final two months of the season to a 20-goal, 43-point campaign. The Canadiens could definitely opt to play Dadonov next year to help their scoring, but it’s also possible that their front office chooses to dangle Dadonov to other teams looking for a scorer. Of course, if Dadonov could be easily dealt for a quality return, the Golden Knights would likely have done that themselves. But the Canadiens do have the option to retain 50% of Dadonov’s deal to make him a more attractive asset, something the Golden Knights would likely not have been able to do.
In a world where many look to find a “winner” and a “loser” of every trade, this deal looks like one that should reasonably benefit both sides. The Golden Knights get something they desperately desire: cap relief, and at a cost that does not siphon even more assets from their depleted stock of draft picks and prospects. The Canadiens, depending on the health of Carey Price, of course, make it so they no longer need to utilize LTIR to remain cap compliant, and they add a player who can help their forward corps for the one year remaining on his deal.
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Vegas Golden Knights Hire Bruce Cassidy
The Vegas Golden Knights have officially named Bruce Cassidy as the third head coach in franchise history. GM Kelly McCrimmon released the following statement about his new bench boss:
The Golden Knights are very pleased to have Bruce come in to coach our team. His success in Boston over six years is extremely impressive. His teams have had a clear identity, having been among the very best in the NHL in terms of goals for, goals against, goal differential and special teams. This is the right coach for our team at this time.
Vegas’ head coaching vacancy opened up when the team fired Peter DeBoer on May 16 after they missed the playoffs for the first time in franchise history. Cassidy met a similar fate last week, despite his Bruins taking the Metropolitan Division champion Carolina Hurricanes to seven games in their First Round series.
Cassidy had an incredibly successful five-and-a-half-season stretch in Boston, and he’ll look to bring that consistency to the Golden Knights. The 57-year-old Ottawa native brings an Eastern Conference title in 2019 under his belt as well as a consistent regular-season track record. The worst points percentage a Bruins team had under Cassidy was .652, a mark they hit in 2018-19, 2020-21, and 2021-22. That’s a 107-point pace over a full 82-game season. It was an unexpected firing, to say the least, and the Golden Knights hope they’ve capitalized on another team’s seemingly poor decision.
The veteran of 509 games as an NHL coach instantly became one of the elite names on the coaching market this offseason alongside DeBoer and former New York Islanders bench boss Barry Trotz. Cassidy had multiple suitors, but the Golden Knights were the first to focus on Cassidy as their top candidate. He’s got a history of managing a top line that’s terrorized opponents, something the Golden Knights hope they can replicate with a trio of Max Pacioretty, Jack Eichel, and Mark Stone. With arguably a better supporting forward cast in Vegas than Cassidy had in Boston, at least on the wings, the Knights hope Cassidy can help guide a healthy team back to elite status.
ESPN’s Kevin Weekes was the first to report that Vegas would be hiring Cassidy.
Photo courtesy of USA Today Sports Images.
Boston Bruins Fire Bruce Cassidy
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.