On the rebound: coaches Cassidy, Berube in Stanley Cup Final
Bruce Cassidy has come a long way from writing his first NHL practice plan on a napkin.
Craig Berube hasn’t changed a bit from the moment he was fired from his first NHL head coaching job.
Two roads diverged in a crazy world of hockey and brought them to this Stanley Cup Final. Cassidy has guided the Boston Bruins to this point a decade and a half after a disastrous tenure in Washington. Berube took the St. Louis Blues from worst to their first final since 1970 several years after a short stint in Philadelphia.
One of them will become the sixth coach in 12 years to lift the Cup in his second stop as NHL head coach and reward an organization and countless people for giving him another chance.
“The guys that are good in this business, they learn a lot along the way and just continue to improve,” said Vegas general manager George McPhee, who hired Cassidy with Washington in 2002, had Berube as a player and then interviewed him for the Capitals’ coaching job in 2013.
“In some ways it’s a shame that these guys didn’t get opportunities earlier. But they continue to coach because they’re good at it and they get opportunities at the American (Hockey) League and then get opportunities at the NHL because they deserve it.”
Cassidy’s former Capitals players couldn’t be sure he deserved this after benching respected veteran defenseman Calle Johansson in his last game with the team in 2003. Goaltender Olie Kolzig said Cassidy had “a lack of professionalism on and off the ice” at the time, which ultimately led to his firing 25 games into his second season.
McPhee wonders aloud now if he put Cassidy in a difficult spot coaching a veteran team featuring established star Jaromir Jagr. Looking back, Kolzig believes Cassidy actually did a fairly good job his first season, but the now 54-yearold coach sees some of his shortcomings in the rearview mirror.
“I was young. I had really no NHL experience,” Cassidy said. “So you walk into an NHL locker room and there’s still a little bit of awe in that, ‘Oh, there’s Jagr, there’s so many of these guys that’ve been around.’ So it probably took me a while to just walk in there and say ‘This is what we’re doing.’”
Nicknamed “Butch” after the infamous outlaw, Cassidy rehabbed his reputation with a season as a Chicago Blackhawks assistant, two in junior and then an eight-year run as an assistant and head coach with the Bruins top AHL affiliate in Providence. By the time he got back to an NHL organization with the Bruins, general manager Don Sweeney noticed Cassidy has “evolved a lot” in his confidence, and the growth goes beyond that.
“He’s been through the ringer and put his time in and obviously grew as a coach and a human being,” said Jim Dowd, who played for Chicago when Cassidy was an assistant. “You don’t get to the Stanley Cup finals without doing that. That was just a blip in the road, but I’m sure he learned a ton from that Washington experience.”
Outside factors — such as Cassidy dealing with a rough divorce — might also have adversely affected his time with Washington. Kolzig is glad Cassidy has his life in order now, and he and McPhee are thrilled to see him at the summit of hockey.
“Most guys go through what he went through and you’d never hear from them again,” Kolzig said. “He went back and paid his dues and learned from his mistakes and applied it to the rest of his career. Now he’s on the verge of winning a Cup.”
To do so, Cassidy’s Bruins have to go through Berube’s Blues, who responded mightily after he succeeded fired coach Mike Yeo on Nov. 19. Before winning 29 of their final 43 games to become the seventh team since 1967 to make the playoffs from last in the league after New Year’s Day, they lost 11 of Berube’s first 20 games as interim replacement.