Are the Knights panicking in firing Cassidy?

LAS VEGAS — When it comes to the Vegas Golden Knights, we should never be surprised by anything.


Whether it’s splurging on high-ticket items for players, moving on from prospects or changing coaches, this organization is never afraid to pull the trigger.

And so it was Sunday when the team announced that it replaced Bruce Cassidy with John Tortorella as the head coach. It is the second time the Knights have made a coaching change in season during their nine-year history — Gerard Gallant was let go in early January and replaced by Pete DeBoer in 2020. DeBoer was terminated after the 2021-22 season and replaced by Cassidy, who went on to win the Stanley Cup in 2023 and was 178-99-43 in his nearly four seasons with Vegas.

Now he’s gone. In his place comes Tortorella, as old-school a personality and coach as you’ll find. Things are going to be very different around City National Arena in many respects, from the way the Knights play to the way the media is dealt with and a lot of things in between.

Of course, that’s the whole point. If George McPhee and Kelly McCrimmon wanted to maintain the status quo, Cassidy would be preparing for the Vancouver Canucks Monday and trying to get this team across the finish line in its final eight games.

But management didn’t see the point of maintaining what it believed was a three-alarm fire spreading throughout the building. The fact there’s only eight games remaining didn’t matter. What matters are results and trying to stop a circling-the-drain end to the regular season. It’s the kind of thing Lou Lamoriello used to do when he was running things in New Jersey. He didn’t wait for a season to end to make a change with the Devils. He didn’t like the looks of things, he switched it up. Like when he let Claude Julien go with three games left in the season.

So Cassidy’s out. Torts is in.

“We thank Bruce Cassidy for his dedication to our hockey club and community over the past four seasons,” said McCrimmon in a statement released by the team Sunday afternoon. “Under Bruce’s leadership, we reached our ultimate goal in 2023 by bringing a Stanley Cup to Vegas. Bruce will forever be remembered with the utmost regard by our organization for what was accomplished here.

“With the stretch run of the 2025-26 regular season upon us, we believe that a change is necessary for us to return to the level of play that is expected of our club. With John Tortorella, we bring in a Stanley Cup Champion as well as one of the most experienced and respected coaches in the NHL. His guidance will be a great asset to our team at the pivotal point in the season we currently face. We look forward to welcoming John to Vegas.”

I don’t know if Cassidy lost all of the room, part of it or none of it. But the team’s play coming out of the Olympic break has not been good. The scoring struggles. The defensive lapses. The subpar goaltending. It all factors in.

I know Adin Hill couldn’t have been thrilled constantly being publicly thrown under the bus by Cassidy when the team lost. It was more of that following losses to Edmonton and Washington this week. Yes, Hill has not been good. But neither have the guys in front of him. To blame him for most of the factors in the team’s struggles is a bit shortsighted.

But Cassidy is not easy to play for if you’re a goalie. He’s hard on his netminders. Will Tortorella be more understanding with Hill? How will he be with Carter Hart, who may be ready to return to the lineup and who Tortorella coached when both were in Philadelphia?

For those of us in the media who dealt with Cassidy every day, he was great. Never ducked a question, was always insightful, and was honest, perhaps to a fault. I will personally miss him. But I also miss Gallant and DeBoer for the same reasons.

This five-week stretch is a collective failure by the team. They have just five wins since the return to the season following the Olympic break Feb. 25. They’ve lost 16 games this season in overtime or a shootout. Saturday, Cassidy elected to use Rasmus Andersson in a shootout against the Capitals instead of Mitch Marner, Shea Theodore or Mark Stone or Tomas Hertl. Andersson didn’t score. Nor did Jack Eichel or Pavel Dorofeyev as the Caps won 5-4.

If the Knights had won just half of those OT/shootouts, we’re probably not having this conversation and he’s likely still the coach. But they haven’t and it’s probably partially why Cassidy is out.

This also falls on management. McCrimmon is responsible for the construction of the roster. He made the decisions to trade for Mitch Marner, for Colton Sissons and Jeremy Lauzon, for Andersson, for signing Hart and for the deadline acquisitions of Nic Dowd and Cole Smith. He has to own those decisions as does McPhee, the team’s president of hockey ops, and, to a certain extent, Bill Foley, the team’s owner. Things are done in a collective manner over at City National Arena and whether it’s a decision to trade for Rasmus Andersson or to fire Bruce Cassidy, McPhee and Foley ultimately sign off on all major transactions and acquisitions.

You can debate which moves have worked or not worked. But this team has not played good hockey for well over a month and while they’ve been missing some pieces (center William Karlsson hasn’t played since November), they’ve been about as healthy as they can the past couple of weeks with Mark Stone and Brett Howden back in the lineup.

So while we should never be surprised when the Knights fire a coach with eight games remaining, we still have to ask why now? And what guarantee do we have that things will get better in these final 17 days of the season?

We know Tortorella’s history. He’s always demanding. He expects 100 percent buy-in by his players. He holds everyone accountable. He has had success before, most notably winning a Stanley Cup with Tampa Bay in 2004. But he’s also come up short. In Columbus. With the Rangers. In Vancouver and in Philadelphia.

His mandate in Vegas is a simple one — win. And win right now. Save the Golden Knights’ season and not only make sure they make the playoffs but make a serious run at the Stanley Cup. There is no grace or break-in period. He was recently on Team USA’s staff at the Olympics so Jack Eichel and Noah Hanifin are familiar with him.

Can he pull it off? We won’t have to wait long to find out. If this works, McCrimmon will look like a genius. If it doesn’t, he might be the next one out the door.