The Vegas Golden Knights have hired Bruce Cassidy as their head coach.
The National Hockey League team made the announcement on its social media on Tuesday.
“I’m excited to join an organization that shares my commitment to winning and I’m already looking forward to working with all the talent in Vegas,” Cassidy said in a statement. It was impressive to see the whole city embrace the Golden Knights from afar. My family and I look forward to being a part of this.”
To everyone’s surprise, the Boston Bruins fired Cassidy last week. He had been in charge of the Massachusetts team since February 2017 and had maintained a record of 245-108-46.
Under his leadership, the “Oursons” reached the Eastern Conference final in 2019, the year he won the Jack-Adams trophy, awarded to the best head coach on the circuit.
“The Vegas Golden Knights are very pleased to be able to hire Bruce as a coach,” added Golden Knights general manager Kelly McCrimmon. His success in Boston over the past six years is impressive. His teams had a clear identity, they were among the best in terms of goals for, goals once morest, differential, as well as on special teams. He’s the perfect coach for our team right now.”
For their part, the Golden Knights showed the way out to head coach Peter DeBoer last May. The Vegas club finished last season ranked ninth in the Western Conference, despite scoring 94 points.
In a press briefing following the announcement of DeBoer’s dismissal, McCrimmon said he felt his players needed to “hear a new voice”.
