Losers of 6 of their past 7 games, the Vegas Golden Knights have announced that they have relieved head coach Bruce Cassidy of his duties with the club effective immediately. In his place, veteran NHL bench boss John Tortorella will take over head coaching duties for the duration of the season.
“We thank Bruce Cassidy for his dedication to our hockey club and community over the past four seasons,” Golden Knights GM Kelly McCrimmon said in a statement. “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.”
With 8 games remaining in the regular season, Vegas currently sports a 32-26-16 record, good for 3rd place in the Pacific Division. However, the Los Angeles Kings are just 4 points back of them with a game in hand, while Seattle is 5 points back with 2 games in hand.
A two time Jack Adams Award winner, Tortorella sports a 770-648-37-165 career record (.538). He was last coaching with the Philadelphia Flyers just over a year ago, before being let go by the club.
Vegas is off Sunday, but will hit the ice at home against the Vancouver Canucks on Monday night in a 10pm ET showdown which will be Tort’s debut behind the Knights’ bench.
Photo: Robert Kowal. This file is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 2.0 Generic license.