Boston Bruins: Bruce Cassidy’s the right guy for the Bruins

Bruins head coach Bruce Cassidy celebrated his 200th game as the Bruins head coach in last week’s 4-2 victory over the Toronto Maple Leafs. How has he stacked up as Boston’s 28th head coach?

It’s a pretty common thing to watch NHL teams play tradesies with each others’ head coaches. In fact, for the past couple of years at least, it’s really been a game of duck, duck, goose with head coaches jumping from one team to another.

That’s why it was incredibly refreshing when the Bruins decided to stick around with Bruce Cassidy after his interim season played out in 2016-17.

There really wasn’t any reason to doubt his longevity in Boston after his success in picking up the pieces after Claude Julien’s untimely exit. In 27 games, Cassidy led the Bruins to an 18-8-1 finish, good enough to settle for 3rd in the division.

Even if the Bruins fell in six games to the Senators, getting that playoff spot at all was something to celebrate after the many months of insecurity that season.

And really, I have to say that two full seasons and a trip to the Stanley Cup Final later, that I am really glad that the Bruins have stuck with Cassidy.

Superstar coaches are… well… nice, I guess. Someone with a name and a proven track record, someone that represents relative security behind the bench and maybe a dramatic turnaround for your team. They become as recognizable a personality as the players themselves, and we adopt them as a member of the Bruins family.

But stars fade, as Bruins fans so rudely discovered during the 2016-17 season, and sometimes the name and prior coaching record isn’t enough to cover for the fact that certain strategies that used to stick don’t work anymore.

It may have been a little uneasy for some Bruins fans who may have been generally unaware of Cassidy’s prior career coaching (which included 110 regular season games with the Capitals from 2002-04), but I feel that Cassidy has been the best fit for this Bruins squad since day one.

He’s been cool and content to coach the team his way, and it’s paid off in dividends.

Under his tenure, the Bruins have gone 125-53-24 and have gone all of the way to Game 7 of the Stanley Cup Final.

Not too bad for an “interim guy.”

We’ve previously spoken about his surprising openness with the media and how we think he’s worth every penny of his recent contract extension. But I’m not sure if many media outlets have said the obvious yet.

Coach, you’ve been a real rock for this team, and it’s been good to know that Bruins fans (and players!) have a stalwart presence behind the bench through the good and the bad.

We send our heartfelt congratulations to Coach Cassidy for his 200th game with the Bruins. Hopefully we can all go back to Game 7 of the Stanley Cup Final and come back with a better result!

I think that’d be appropriate enough thanks for your good work here in Boston. To this season, and to many more!

All statistics used in this article are courtesy of Hockey-Reference.