Almost twenty years back, when Cassidy was disposed less than a season-and-a-half into his period with the Capitals, it appeared unusual that he’d get another NHL job, not to mention be on the doorstep of directing a group to a champion. George McPhee — now Vegas’ president of hockey operations — employed Cassidy in 2002, then fired him 17 losses in 25 video games into the 2003-04 season.
“Most guys go through what he went through and you’d never hear from them again,” previous Capitals goaltender Olie Kolzig said in 2019.
Instead, Cassidy paid his fees, initially as an assistant in Chicago, then training Kingston in the Ontario Hockey League. He went back to the pros as an assistant with the American Hockey League’s Providence Bruins, was promoted to head coach and returned in the NHL on Claude Julien’s staff in Boston by 2016.
“Give the guy credit: He came back from the dead,” said retired defenceman Colby Cohen, who played under Cassidy in Providence. “He grinded his way through, and he developed players. It really is impressive.”
Cassidy was a midseason replacement for Julien early in 2017 and coached the Bruins to the playoffs 6 seasons in a row prior to a first-round exit in 2015 triggered Boston to let him go. When the Golden Knights desired a coach with winning experience, they employed Cassidy.
“If you have a team, a veteran team that is ready for winning, I’m not sure there’s a better coach right now in hockey than him,” Cohen said. “He is good at what he does. His ability to adjust in game, and his ability to see what’s happening within a game and change on the fly or pull a different lever — changing lines, getting a certain matchup changing the forecheck, changing neutral zone sets — if you do it, you are successful as a team.”
The Golden Knights won 13 of their very first 15 video games with Cassidy and ended up atop the Western Conference regardless of goaltending injuries and other difficulty that may have knocked them off course — like it did last season, triggering Peter DeBoer’s shooting as coach.
“He thinks the game really well,” Vegas leading scorer Jonathan Marchessault and Stanley Cup MVP said about Cassidy. “He kept us humble and kept us also the mindset of just one game at a time and don’t think too far and stay in the moment. I think that’s been one of the big things for us this year.”
Vegas travelled through the very first 2 rounds of the playoffs, beating Winnipeg in 5 video games and surpassing Connor McDavid, Leon Draisaitl and Edmonton to reach the West last. That is maybe where his finest training of the year came the night prior to Game 6 versus Dallas. The Golden Knights, as soon as up 3-0, had actually lost 2 in a row and were on the verge of breaking down.
Cassidy collected gamers for a conference to take shape for them what was at stake.
“It was kind of like, ‘All right, that’s enough, let’s close this out,’” centre Chandler Stephenson remembered. “So, we had our best game of the playoffs.”
Until Tuesday night, when the Golden Knights controlled the Panthers in Game 5 to win the Stanley Cup.
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AP NHL playoffs: https://apnews.com/hub/stanley-cup and https://twitter.com/AP_Sports
Mark Anderson And Stephen Whyno, The Associated Press
