6 Takeaways from Golden Knights' Stunning Coaching Change from Bruce Cassidy to John Tortorella
The Vegas Golden Knights are always a fascinating franchise, but their firing of head coach Bruce Cassidy and hiring of John Tortorella takes things to a completely new level.
The Golden Knights are 3-5-2 in their last 10 games and 1-4-2 in their last seven, and they have slipped to third in the Pacific Division with eight games left before the postseason.
They are three points behind the Edmonton Oilers for second place and six back of the Anaheim Ducks for first. The Los Angeles Kings are four points behind them, and games are running out.
Vegas is almost certainly a playoff team unless things go very sideways, but it's gone from being in control of the division to having to start the playoffs on the road in a matter of weeks. Cassidy helped Vegas win a Stanley Cup in 2023, and now it's up to Tortorella to snap the team into shape for the postseason.
How does this happen? What gives in Vegas? Can Tortorella snap them out of it? We'll break down what happens when the demands for success are sky-high in the desert.
Vegas Management Is Ruthless
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Every time you think the demands for success in the NHL are high across Canada, especially in Toronto, Montréal, or Vancouver, Vegas takes things to an entirely different level.
Ever since the Golden Knights' inception, ownership's goal under Bill Foley has been to win as soon as possible and amass as many Stanley Cups as they can. Vegas made the Stanley Cup Final in their first season and built the team to win immediately through the expansion draft. They've regularly dealt first-round picks and prospects for primetime players and moved on from big signings ASAP when they found other players they felt could get things done more efficiently. Just ask Marc-André Fleury about that.
Bruce Cassidy is a legend in Vegas for helping them win a Stanley Cup and he's done a spectacular job there. But after adding Mitch Marner in the offseason, expectations in Vegas were that they'd be one of the best teams in the West. Never mind the injuries to Alex Pietrangelo and Adin Hill this season; they had to be in a cozier spot than they're in now, and they're not.
The prospect of another wasted postseason clearly made Golden Knights management uncomfortable, and this late in the season, the only option is to relieve the coach. Is it right? It's not how things normally go.
The last time something like this happened was in 2000, when New Jersey Devils GM Lou Lamoriello fired coach Robbie Ftorek and put Larry Robinson in place. That led the Devils to the Cup. The Golden Knights have to hope Tortorella can do the same this time around.
The Western Conference Is Up for Grabs
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Firing a coach with fewer than 10 games left in a season rarely happens, and even less so with a team in a playoff position. It's even rarer with a team that could still win its division. But the Pacific Division and the Western Conference are wired differently this year.
It only took a matter of games for Vegas to go from being atop the Pacific to being in third place and perilously hanging onto that spot, but they're also a season-ending hot streak away from possibly having home ice in the first round of the playoffs and perhaps even winning the division.
This kind of delicate balance makes it all a matter of how teams view things and how they feel about the playoffs.
While some teams might see the Western Conference playoffs as a "forget it, we ball" situation where anything could happen, Vegas viewed it as an opportunity to gain an advantage by getting straightened out quickly and being ready for the playoffs wherever they end up.
Yes, the Central Division is a nightmare with Colorado, Dallas, and Minnesota, but at least one of those teams will be gone after the first round. Edmonton made its way to the Stanley Cup Final the past two years after rolling over the Pacific Division playoffs and getting a gassed Dallas Stars team in the Western Conference Final.
Surviving the Pacific Division playoffs is the aim.
Tortorella's Dedication to Defense and Discipline Sells
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When a team hires John Tortorella to coach, it knows precisely what it's signing up for: a no-nonsense firebrand who will drive his players hard and demand exceptional play from them in all areas of the ice.
Teams are also aware they're getting a coach who will most likely upset some of their players.
The big selling point of adding Tortorella is his insistence that his teams have the defensive fundamentals in place and execute them to their full potential at all times. No player will play perfectly every shift, but an honest effort and not cheating the game are great ways to ensure Tortorella doesn't make their lives miserable.
This season at 5-on-5, Vegas is tied with the Canadiens and Sabres for the eighth most high-danger goals allowed, all while they have the league's lowest save percentage on high-danger chances. You could pin that on the goaltending, yes, but considering they've allowed the fewest high-danger chances against, it points to areas that need to be cleaned up around the net.
Of all the metrics at 5-on-5, those are the ones most out of whack for Vegas. Their shots on goal, goals-for and expected goals-for numbers are very good. When it comes to chances in tight, however, they've given up a lot. With how Tortorella will ideally tune Vegas' game, that should change.
Fine-tuning for the postseason doesn't usually result in a coaching change, but this is how the Knights are doing things, particularly after failing in the postseason in the past two years.
Adding Tortorella Could Just as Easily Backfire on Vegas
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Bruce Cassidy was not an easygoing coach, and his tenure with the Boston Bruins ended abruptly after the 2021-22 season. However, compared with John Tortorella, at least in his public-facing demeanor, Cassidy comes across as far more relaxed.
Tortorella's demanding coaching style can rub players the wrong way and create friction where there may not have been any before.
The majority of the Golden Knights' roster was part of the team that won the Stanley Cup in 2023, and while Cassidy was the coach who made that happen, going from him to Tortorella is a seismic change personality-wise. Changes like this can be for the better.
Think about when Michel Therrien was canned by the Pittsburgh Penguins, and Dan Bylsma guided them to the Stanley Cup in 2009. Darryl Sutter took over the Los Angeles Kings after Terry Murray was fired and eventually led them to two Stanley Cups.
We mentioned Larry Robinson sliding in to lead the Devils to the Cup in 2000, when Robbie Ftorek was fired late in the season. But even as gruff as Sutter was in L.A., Tortorella is an entirely different kind of personality to adjust to.
Vegas management hopes this can be a jolt that wakes up this veteran group and rallies them to another Stanley Cup. With such an experienced roster, that can happen.
That said, if Tortorella creates more of a wedge and causes things to disintegrate into another early playoff exit, it'll create a lot more questions that have to be answered.
Bruce Cassidy Will Be Out of Work as Long as He Wants to Be
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If anything has been proven over the years, it's that Bruce Cassidy is a heck of a coach.
He's guided teams to 50 or more wins in a season four times. He's taken two teams to the Stanley Cup Final and won it once. He won the Jack Adams Award in 2020 as the league's coach of the year, and that kind of success cannot be coincidental.
The teams he had in Boston and Vegas had a lot of talent, but providing the guidance and systems to win that much and to ultimately claim the Stanley Cup is telling. He can coach and do it well, and when the next round of jobs opens up in the offseason, his name will be at the top of the list.
Cassidy has reflected a lot on his early years in coaching and how he was too intense and too hard back then, making it hard to lead players in the best way possible. After seeing the ways he's guided the Bruins to a Stanley Cup Final in 2019, falling one win short of a title there, and then going on to do it with Vegas in 2023, it shows he's adapted over time.
Whatever happened in Vegas this time around that led to his departure most likely won't prevent another team from bringing him in to see if he can accomplish what he did with a new team. The catch now? He can decide where he wants to go and be in demand for it.
John Tortorella Is a Genuinely Good Coach
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The wildest part of Vegas deciding to can Bruce Cassidy and have John Tortorella take over is that it very well might just work out.
Tortorella's tenure with the Philadelphia Flyers came to an end after a few seasons, but with the way he was able to nearly put them into the playoffs when they had zero business even being close in 2023-2024 is as much a credit to him as it was his work with the Tampa Bay Lightning and winning a Stanley Cup there in 2004.
That's a hot take, but getting that Flyers team to 87 points and being in a playoff spot for much of the season before running out of gas was a remarkable feat.
Tortorella knows how to coach and does it darn well. Yes, his personality is abrasive. Yes, he can be upsetting for players who aren't ready for his tactics and intensity. No, it's not always acceptable how he handles situations. It can be downright brutal at times.
But in this situation in Vegas, with how old that roster is and how much clearer a path to the Stanley Cup Final is in the Pacific Division, injecting Tortorella into that situation might be just the right lever to pull to make it happen.
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