Bruins fire head coach Bruce Cassidy


The Boston Bruins have fired coach Bruce Cassidy, who led them to the Stanley Cup Final in 2019, a league-best record next year and at least 100 points in each of his four full pandemic-free 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 track record as head coach for the Bruins is impressive, and we appreciate Bruce both professionally and personally.”

The Bruins made the playoffs in each of Cassidy’s six seasons since he replaced Claude Julien in February 2017. He coached them to a Stanley Cup win in 2019 against the St. Louis Blues.

But the team hasn’t gotten out of the second round since, including a Game 7 loss to Carolina this spring. Afterward, team president Cam Neely said, “We have to consider making some changes to how we play and the way we do some of the things.”

“I think Bruce is a fantastic coach,” Neely said at his season-ending media availability. “He has brought a lot of success to this organization. I like him as a coach. So, we’ll see where he 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 during 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 who will help our team reach its full potential.”

Cassidy, winner of the Jack Adams award for best NHL coach in 2020, becomes one of the main candidates for vacancies in Philadelphia, Chicago, Winnipeg, Las Vegas and Detroit. Others may open due to availability.

After struggling for two seasons with Washington in his first NHL head coaching job, from 2002 to 2004, Cassidy worked his way back to the NHL with the Bruins’ American Hockey League affiliate in Providence.

Cassidy, 57, replaced Julien in Boston, 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 led 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 racked up 100 points in 70 games and claimed the Presidents’ Trophy for the best record in the league. But after Rask left the postseason bubble to attend 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 spot and failed to make it out of the first round.

The team has since announced that Marchand, the leading scorer, and Charlie McAvoy, the No. 1 defenseman, will miss the first two months of next season while they recover from surgery. Bergeron, who won his fifth Selke Trophy as the league’s best defensive forward, is unsigned and has not committed to playing another season; he is also recovering from surgery.



Reference-www.theglobeandmail.com

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