NHL: Everything you need to know about The Las Vegas Golden Knights new head Coach, Bruce Cassidy

1. Bruce Cassidy becomes the new head of the Las Vegas Golden Knight

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g6BVRHB4ECI

Bruce Cassidy is now the Head Coach of The Las Vegas Golden Knights and fans probably have a lot of questions about what this means for the future of the organization? Furthermore, what kind of expertise is Mr. Cassidy bringing to Las Vegas that will make him an improvement over former coach, Pete Deboer?  The first thing you need to know about Mr. Cassidy spent his active career as a defenseman for the Chicago Blackhawks. While Cassidy did show flashes of brilliance throughout his NHL career, even winning The Memorial Cup at one point, his knee injuries greatly hindered his career. He eventually retired after 15 years in the league and failed to win a Stanley Cup of his own.

2. A overview of Bruce Cassidy’s coaching career in The NHL

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7v7YCFyx_40

Fortunately for Bill Cassidy, he turned his focus to coaching and quickly nabbed a job with The Jacksonville Lizard Kings and worked there for two years in The ECHL.  He had mixed results during this time, going 15-25 -10 in his first season One year later, however, he actually improved the team to 35-29-6   This effort was apparently enough for The Indianapolis Ice to offer him a head coaching role there. This is where he led his first team to the playoffs and beat a heavily favored Cincinnati Cyclones in a three-game series. Of course, they lost their first game 4-2 against the then league heavyweight but would go on to win their next game in overtime. They then went on to knock out the Cyclones and went on to face the Detroit Vipers.

Unfortunately for Cassidy, his team was outmatched from the very beginning and ended up getting swept in the series. The team received worse news later that year when it was announced that they would be ceasing operations. This put Cassidy on the hunt for another team, Which would lead him to the Trenton Titans, where he would work as head coach there for two years. Fast Forward a bit and Cassidy has served as a coach for The Washington Capitals, The Chicago Blackhawks, and an assistant coach for The Boston Bruins. Now, some might look at this as a very shaky NHL coaching background, especially when he jumped from team to team, but he probably has gained a lot of experience in those years.

3. Evaluating Bruce Cassidy’s playoff recored and how it could help The Las Vegas Golden Knights

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UvAmF0VDYVk

What about Cassidy’s NHL playoff record though? How has he performed in the postseason?  Will he be able to bring The Las Vegas Golden Knights to make it back to The Stanley Cup Finals?  He is actually 36-37 in The NHL playoffs, with his best season being as assistant coach of The Boston Bruins in 2018-2019. That’s the year they went 15-9 in the playoffs before losing to The St Louis Blues in a very competitive 4-3 series.

 This remains the closest he came to the championship and it was as an assistant head coach.  Despite that, Cassidy has helped produce seven winning seasons as either a head coach or an assistant coach. He also had a stint in minor league hockey, leading various teams to have winning seasons ten times in 12 years. He also led these teams to the playoffs nine times in that period. 

"I think in general I've done a good job with certain areas of the game that are important in the National Hockey League," Cassidy said of his experience as a Head Coach. "That's the kind of style of play that I believe I can bring and I've tried to get our teams to play. It looks like this group of players will want to play that way and excel in that style."

4. Biggest hurdles for The Bruce Cassidy as head coach of The Las Vegas Golden Knights

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rg5ieNeg118

The biggest hurdle for Bruce Cassidy with The Las Vegas Golden Knights is how to properly condition them for the season.  It’s no secret that several top players were out with injuries in 2021, and that problem needs to be addressed.  How Cassidy approaches this is up to him, but he is going to need to keep players off the injury reserve list.  This going to start with rigid conditioning that will hopefully help keep the team healthy.  They also need some depth at the position, which can be acquired by trad.

Another thing Las Vegas needs to work on is their goalie rotation. Robin Lehner had a shaky season at best as the lead goalie for the team and Laurent Brossoit was disastrous as a backup. Third-string goalie, Logan Thompson did show some promise at the position, but it wasn't enough to move the team forward. Unfortunately for Lehner,  this could mean his days are numbered with The Golden Knights. The team might even try to get Marc Andre Fleury back and trade away  Lehner for a draft pick.   Anything has to be on the table at this point in time.

5. Why did The Las Vegas Golden Knights choose Bruce Cassidy as Head Coach?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z-NmbpN-MDQ

What got Bruce Cassidy the job with The Las Vegas Golden Knights though? What was it about Cassidy that made General Manager, Kelly McCrimmon, want to bring him in so early in the offseason? Apparently, it has to do with his consistent ability to build a structured defense and an offense that can capitalize on power plays. His track record of being someone that has consistently taken teams to the playoffs and even The Stanley Coach one year as an Assistant Coach of the Boston Bruins was also taken into consideration. 

"I know that it's been a challenge here at different times in the past," General Manager Kelly McCrimmon said. "Bruce has done it again and again and again. I guess that's what to me is impressive. There are different teams and different coaches that with the right personnel and the right year you have a really good power play or a really good penalty kill. Or, maybe one is significantly better than the other significantly. In Bruce's case, the penalty kill and the power play consistently have been very, very good for a long period of time."

6. Final thoughts on Bruce Cassidy as head coach of The Las Vegas Golden Knights

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tq9qY924SLc

Whether Bruce Cassidy can bring The Las Vegas Golden Knights back to the playoffs remains to be seen, but he does seem to have faith in the organization already. In fact, he openly admitted that this is the team that can probably finally get his name engraved on that elusive Stanley Cup he has always wanted to win. In the end, this is a grand experiment being undertaken by The Golden Knights and it’s going to take some time to see results. A lot of their performance also hinges on how they are conditioned during the offseason, who they happen to acquire, and how they ultimately respond to their goalie situation. Hopefully, these questions will be answered soon though and Las Vegas will be back to winning form.