29 days ago, the Vegas Golden Knights pulled off another shocking move, firing Bruce Cassidy and bringing in John Tortorella with just eight games left in the regular season. While everyone still with Vegas is focused on the task at hand, facing a 2-1 deficit to the Utah Mammoth in the First Round, their former head coach already has his eyes set on the future.
In his first extended public appearance since the firing, Cassidy joined Leafs Morning Take to chat about the NHL playoffs as well as his dismissal from Vegas.
That’s the business sometimes. I mean, I got an opportunity because a good fella got fired, and that’s the way it goes at times for us. That’s the business we chose. The timing of it was a little different, but they got a good group in there. They got good players, good leadership, lots of character, so I enjoyed being there. But on to the next challenge now is the way I’ll look at it. –Cassidy on Leafs Morning Take
Cassidy admitted he was surprised not only by the move but by the timing.
Yeah, I mean, we didn’t have a great March, certainly by our standards. We were not winning games. Losing the close ones, finding different ways to lose as opposed to win, something we had done very well over the years there. But still you’re that far along so yeah that certainly caught me off guard, but I know that Vegas is going to do whatever they have to do to win, and they felt that’s what they had to do. –Cassidy on Leafs Morning Take
Cassidy left the Golden Knights with a regular season record of 245-108-46, won five out of seven playoff series, and of course, hoisted the Stanley Cup. He was the longest-tenured and most successful coach in franchise history, but was not given a chance to see it through with the team he felt he was shaping for this playoff run, since the moment they lost to Edmonton in the playoffs last year.
With a team like Vegas, we started in Training Camp in October, building our game for areas that we thought we would be better at in the playoffs, because you evaluate yourself on the year before, right? Against Edmonton, Round Two last year, we didn’t score enough, so you try to build those habits into your game. –Cassidy on Leafs Morning Take
It’s clear Cassidy doesn’t expect to sit on the sidelines long.
We’ll see if that happens. For me, the most important thing is an opportunity to win, I’m not getting any younger. So, I’m in it to try to win a Stanley Cup. It happened once and I lost in a Game Seven once, so that’s what motivates me. That would be probably the most important thing. But, I will say every job I got hired to in the NHL as a head coach, the team the year before missed the playoffs. So, it’s not always automatic that it’s a team that’s right there. Sometimes they have an off year or something’s happening, so that’s tougher to evaluate. You never know how it’s going to play out, but opportunity first and then location. I have two kids in high school, so they’ll factor into a decision and go from there. –Cassidy on Leafs Morning Take
As of right now, none of the 32 NHL coaching jobs are vacant, so he’s going to have to wait his turn. Nonetheless, the moment a job opens up, and every single one that does until he accepts, Bruce Cassidy will surely be atop the list of potential candidates.
*The whole interview, which is excellent, can be viewed below.*
