The Bruins have fired Bruce Cassidy after six seasons

It was a move that was vaguely alluded to a couple of weeks ago, but it’s still a shock: the Bruins announced this evening that Bruce Cassidy has been fired.

The Bruins announced that the team has “relieved Bruce Cassidy of his duties as head coach” and said the search for a replacement would begin immediately.

Cassidy had coached the Bruins for parts of six seasons, taking the reins in February 2017.

In 399 games behind the Bruins’ bench, Cassidy posted a record of 245-108-46, a points percentage of .672.

Cassidy led the Bruins to the playoffs in each of his seasons as head coach, and made it to the second round in every season but two: his first and his last.

If you remember, Cam Neely essentially floated the idea of firing Cassidy at his end-of-season availability, saying:

“I think we have to look at making some changes as far as how we play and the way we do some of the things,” said Neely. “I think Bruce is a fantastic coach...he’s brought a lot of success to this organization. I like him as a coach. So, we’ll see where it goes. But I do think we need to make some changes. And I think Bruce, a couple of days ago, alluded to that. So, we’ll see where that goes with that.”

In a press release tonight, Sweeney, who most assumed would be the one on the hot seat, had this to say:

“After taking some time to fully digest everything, I felt that the direction of our team for both this season and beyond would benefit from a new voice.”

So here we are: a GM without a contract has decided, with ownership’s blessing, to fire the coach after what most would consider a disappointing but not entirely unexpected ending to the season.

I would assume that the B’s will be making a phone call to Barry Trotz, but maybe they’ll follow Don Sweeney’s drafting lead and go completely off the board.

New coach, no centers, whole bunch of injuries heading into next season...this is fine.