Not everyone gets a second chance at the Stanley Cup.
It's the hardest trophy in sports to win, and when you get to the Cup Final and fail, it's very difficult to get back.
Luckily for Bruce Cassidy, it didn't take him long to again reach the doorstep of history after coming so close to winning the Stanley Cup with the Boston Bruins in 2019. That defeat in 2019 -- a Game 7 loss at home to an inferior St. Louis Blues team -- was a crushing blow for Cassidy, the Bruins and the fan base. Three years later, the Bruins fired him following a first-round loss to the Carolina Hurricanes.
Cassidy wasn't a coaching free agent for long. He became the next head coach of the Vegas Golden Knights in June of 2022, only about a week after being fired in Boston. His first season in Vegas has been as good as he could have hoped for. The Golden Knights have taken a 2-0 series lead over the Florida Panthers in the 2023 Stanley Cup Final. Vegas won the first two games at home by a combined score of 12-4.
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Cassidy is now just two wins away from accomplishing a lifelong dream: Hoisting the Stanley Cup.
“I don’t have my name on it,” Cassidy recently told Jesse Granger of The Athletic. “I don’t want to say it’s everything, but in terms of my career, it is everything to win the Cup. Those (trophies) are all great. They are. They’re accomplishments, but they’re not the Stanley Cup. People talk about Stanley Cup champions, not Jack Adams winners or Presidents’ trophy winners.”
The Bruins enjoyed a record-breaking regular season under their new head coach Jim Montgomery. They finished with the most wins (65) and most points (135) in league history. It's not always easy to see your former employer have success without you, but Cassidy did a pretty good job turning the Golden Knights around after Vegas had a disappointing 2021-22 campaign.
“You take it a bit personal, right, but I know the circumstances,” Cassidy told Granger. “They did a good job of changing some things. We changed some things here that helped the Knights. Pete (DeBoer) changed things in Dallas that helped the Stars. You can’t beat yourself up over it. Coaches move. I got an opportunity there because a very good coach in Claude Julien got let go, so that’s just the way it works.”
Cassidy might ultimately get the last laugh, though.
The Bruins blew a 3-1 series lead in the first round and were eliminated by the Florida Panthers. The Panthers won Game 7 in Boston in overtime.
Cassidy's Golden Knights, at least so far, have made the Panthers look like a team that has no business being in the Stanley Cup Final. If the Golden Knights finish the job and win the Stanley Cup, the victory likely will be even sweeter for Cassidy given what happened a year ago.
