Cassidy aims to 'finish the job,' coach Golden Knights to Stanley Cup

Bruce Cassidy said he has unfinished business in trying to win the Stanley Cup for the first time in his NHL coaching career, and he wants to complete the job with the Vegas Golden Knights.

"I've got let go," Cassidy said Thursday, two days after being named Golden Knights coach following his firing by the Boston Bruins on June 6.
"This is not some sort of a revenge tour," he said. "I just want to prove to myself, more importantly, that I'm capable of doing the job and winning, winning in the postseason. So, there's a little bit of that.
"It's not going to consume me every day, by any means. When you come close to winning to Cup, it's always in the back of your mind and you want to finish the job. I definitely have that mindset where I'm at."
Cassidy replaces Peter DeBoer, who was fired May 16 after the Golden Knights (43-31-8) finished three points behind the Nashville Predators for the second wild card into the Stanley Cup Playoffs from the Western Conference.
The 57-year-old is 292-155-53 with nine ties in 509 NHL games through eight seasons with the Washington Capitals and Bruins.
He was 245-108-46 during the regular season and 36-37 in the postseason with Boston, which he led to the playoffs in each of his six seasons there. Cassidy coached the Bruins to the Stanley Cup Final in 2019, when they lost to the St. Louis Blues in seven games.

Vegas general manager Kelly McCrimmon said the consistency of Cassidy's teams on the power play and penalty kill was a factor in his hiring. In the past five seasons, Boston's penalty kill was ranked outside of the top 10 in the NHL once (tied for 16th in 2018-19), and the same was true for its power play (tied for 15th this season).
The Golden Knights were ranked 21st in the NHL on the penalty kill (77.4 percent) and 25th on the power play (18.4 percent) this season.
"There are different teams and different coaches that, with the right personnel or in the right year you have a real good power play, or a real good penalty kill or maybe one's better than the other significantly," McCrimmon said. "In Bruce's case, the penalty kill, and the power play consistently have been very, very good for a long period of time. So that's really important to us."
"It's part of the decision-making process we had in terms of what we think Bruce's strengths are and what can translate to our team."
Cassidy discussed what works for him on the man-advantage.
"Typically, you're seeing at least four forwards and a defenseman on the power play, so I've always felt majority of the play should go through those four forwards," he said. "They're more comfortable around the net, they want the puck around the net, they're high-end guys that need the puck around the net. That drives a lot of their offense that can spill into 5-on-5. So that's the first thing we always tried to do.
"Every power play has options, so we want our options to be as close to the net as possible. We'll make sure we build in those, depending on sticks, strengths."
This is Cassidy's second time working with Golden Knights president of hockey operations George McPhee. In 2002, McPhee, then general manager of the Capitals, hired Cassidy as coach. Cassidy, who was 47-47-7 with nine ties for Washington, said he had a message for McPhee this time around.
"I told George, 'I'm going to get it right this time,'" he said. "I can't say enough good things about George, lot of respect for what he's done throughout the NHL and specifically here in Vegas. I'm very excited."