Bruins fire Cassidy
Team ousts coach after first-round exit from playoffs
The Boston Bruins have fired coach Bruce Cassidy, who led them to the Stanley Cup Final in 2019, the best record in the league the next year and at least 100 points in each of his four full nonpandemic seasons behind the bench.
Bruins general manager Don Sweeney announced the move Monday night, three weeks after the team’s firstround playoff loss to the Carolina Hurricanes.
The Bruins made the playoffs in each of Cassidy’s six seasons since he took over for Claude Julien in February 2017. He coached them within one victory of the Stanley Cup in 2019 against the St. Louis Blues.
But the team hasn’t gotten out of the second round since then, including a Game 7 loss to Carolina this spring.
The Jack Adams Award winner as the NHL’S top coach in 2020, Cassidy becomes a top candidate for vacancies in Philadelphia, Chicago, Winnipeg, Vegas and
Detroit. Others may open because of his availability.
Cassidy, 57, took over in Boston from Julien, 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 brought the team to the cusp of another title in 2019 before losing to St. Louis in seven games.
During the pandemicinterrupted 2019-20 season the Bruins amassed 100 points in 70 games and claimed the Presidents Trophy for
the league’s best record. But after Rask left the postseason bubble to tend to a family emergency, the team lost in the second round.
After another secondround exit last year, the Bruins qualified for this year’s postseason with a wild-card berth and did not make it out of the first round.
In all, Cassidy was 245-108-46 in Boston and is 292-155-9-7 in his NHL coaching career.