Bruce Cassidy says he would have liked to see it through
Bruce Cassidy said he would have liked to see it through with the Golden Knights after being fired in late March with eight games left in the regular season. The former Vegas coach spoke Tuesday night and said the timing left him thinking about the finish line he never reached.
Cassidy and the Golden Knights
"You grind for 74 games and you wanna be there at the end. That's the payoff, right? Playing for the Cup, getting your name on the Cup again," Cassidy said. He added, "But Vegas, they had their standard, they felt they weren't there, so they made a change."
Cassidy won the Stanley Cup with the Golden Knights in 2023, so his firing carried added weight inside a season that had already pushed the team through a sharp late downturn. Vegas went 4-9-2 in March, started that month at the top of the Pacific, and finished it in third place, six points behind the first-place Anaheim Ducks.
John Tortorella’s stretch
John Tortorella replaced Cassidy and inherited the final eight games. Vegas went 7-0-1 over that stretch and finished first in the Pacific under Tortorella.
By the time Cassidy spoke, the Golden Knights were tied 2-2 in their first-round series against the Utah Mammoth, with Game 5 set for Wednesday night at home. Cassidy said, "Great guys in that locker room, great players, so I'm excited for the guys but disappointed I didn't get a chance to finish the job with them."
Cassidy’s next challenge
He said, "I would've liked to see it through... We'd won once before, so we knew what it looked like to win" and added, "We were a first or second-place team most of the year — I felt we would've got in (to playoffs)." Cassidy finished by saying, "I don't know where we would've finished at the end, that's speculation, but yes, I would've loved to have had the opportunity."
That leaves him where many veteran coaches end up after a sudden dismissal: still tied to a recent championship run, but already looking at the next job. Cassidy said, "But didn't work out that way, so you start thinking about your next challenge."
