After leaving him dangling for a couple of weeks, the Bruins decided to fire their highly successful head coach Bruce Cassidy on Monday evening.
The decision was that of GM Don Sweeney, whose own contract extension has not been publicly announced as of yet, though he certainly seems to be here for the foreseeable future.
“Today I informed Bruce Cassidy that I was making a head coaching change,” said Sweeney. “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.”
Sweeney will hold an 8 a.m. press conference on Tuesday.
Both Sweeney and team president Cam Neely said in their end-of-season press conferences that they believed the team needed to change their style of play to create more offense.
“I want to thank Bruce for his time and service to the Boston Bruins organization over the last 14 years,” said Bruins President Cam Neely. “Bruce has been a fantastic coach and has helped this team win many games and achieve success over his tenure behind the bench. I also want to extend my gratitude to Bruce and his family for everything they’ve done over the years to support the New England community and Bruins organization. We wish them continued success in the future.”
While no new deal for Sweeney was announced, Neely added that it will be Sweeney who will hire the next coach.
“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,” Neely added.
There is a long list of coaching candidates, including Barry Trotz, Pete DeBoer, John Tortorella as well as former Providence Bruins head coach Jay Leach, who is now an assistant coach with the Seattle Kraken.
The next coach will have to meet a high bar. Cassidy leaves the Bruins with a .672 points percentage after taking over from Claude Julien in February of the 2016-17 season when the B’s appeared to be headed for a third straight DNQ. His points percentage was the best for a B’s coach since Bep Guidolin’s brief tenure near the end of the Bobby Orr-Phil Esposito era from 1973-74 when he posted a .736 mark.
Cassidy brought with him a bluster-free style that was nonetheless straight-shooting. If he was asked about a player’s performance, he would give his matter-of-fact opinion, whether positive or negative.
After he took over from Julien, the B’s got the traditional new-coach bump – and then some. They made the post-season that year and every year under Cassidy. In his second full season in 2018-19, the B’s made it all the way to Game 7 of the Stanley Cup Finals in which they suffered a gut-wrenching defeat on Garden ice.
The next season, it appeared as though the B’s were ready for another attempt to scale the mountain. They amassed a 44-14-12 record through 70 games when the world as we knew it stopped in March 2020. The worldwide COVID pandemic shut down sports leagues around the the globe and, though the B’s would win the Presidents’ Trophy as the best team in the regular season, they could not regain their momentum when the playoffs commenced in the fan-less bubble atmosphere in Toronto.
They lost in the second round to the eventual champion Tampa Bay Lightning, and then lost again in the second round in 2020-21, this time to the Islanders.
Along the way, Cassidy dealt with the peeling away of the team’s core. Then captain Zdeno Chara was not re-signed after the bubble playoffs, nor was Torey Krug. After the playoff loss to the Islanders, David Krejci decided to return home to Czechia to play in front of his family and friends. Tuukka Rask was forced to retire in the midst of a short comeback attempt last winter following hip surgery
Sweeney went on a spending spree last summer to try and fill some of the holes. He signed forwards Erik Haula, Nick Foligno and Tomas Nosek as well as defenseman Derek Forbort and goalie Linus Ullmark.
It took a while for things to come together. It wasn’t until Cassidy broke up the Brad Marchand-Patrice Bergeron-David Pastrnak line, moving Pastrnak onto a line with Taylor Hall and Haula, for a New Year’s Day matinee did the B’s season take off. From that point on, the B’s were one of the best teams in the league.
But they could not get over the hump in their series against the Carolina Hurricanes. Cassidy pushed enough buttons – including reuniting Pastrnak with Bergeron and Marchand, then breaking them up again – to get them to a Game 7, but they could not do what the New York Rangers did after them, which was win at PNC Arena.
Cassidy faced his share of headwinds during the season. Jake DeBrusk’s trade request, initially made last summer, became public last November. There was also an unusual approach to the goaltending with Rask’s comeback attempt. But in the end, DeBrusk, who had at times chafed under Cassidy’s demands, enjoyed his best season since since his second year in the league.
One of Neely’s criticisms was that players were too afraid to make mistakes. Now those mistakes will be another coach’s problem with which to deal.
