The Vegas Golden Knights are gambling that a ‘new-coach bump’ will propel their team to a run that lasts deep into the 2026 Stanley Cup Playoffs. With eight games remaining in their regular-season schedule, the team announced Sunday that it had parted ways with head coach Bruce Cassidy and brought in John Tortorella as hi successor.
According to Emily Kaplan of ESPN, Tortorella’s contract runs only through the end of this season. The 67-year-old had been contributing to the network’s hockey coverage this season. He also won an Olympic gold medal in Milan in February as an assistant coach on Mike Sullivan’s Team USA staff.
Advertisement
Tortorella is now back behind an NHL bench after 367 days away. He was fired late in his third season with the Philadelphia Flyers, on Mar. 27, 2025.
All told, the Boston native has 1,620 games of NHL coaching experience with the New York Rangers, Tampa Bay Lightning, Columbus Blue Jackets and Vancouver Canucks. That puts him sixth all-time among NHL coaches and fourth among active coaches behind Paul Maurice of the Florida Panthers (2,003 games), Lindy Ruff of the Buffalo Sabres (1,930 games) and Joel Quenneville of the Anaheim Ducks (1,841 games).
Tortorella guided the Lightning to their franchise’s first-ever Stanley Cup win in 2004 and got the Rangers to the Cup Final in 2012 before they fell to the Los Angeles Kings.
Advertisement
Cassidy, 60, leaves Vegas after nearly four full seasons. In his first year with the team, he took the Golden Knights to their first-ever Stanley Cup win in 2023 but has failed to recapture that same magic. Vegas went out in the first round in 2024 and the second round last season.
Even more concerning, the team that famously reached the Stanley Cup Final in its first year after expansion in 2018 and has only missed the playoffs once in its eight-year franchise history is currently clinging to a playoff spot in the weak Pacific Division. With a record of 32-26-16 for 80 points in 74 games, the Golden Knights’ current .541 points percentage is actually lower than the .573 that caused their post-season miss in 2021-22 and led to Cassidy’s hiring.
Bruce Cassidy took the Vegas Golden Knights to a Stanley Cup win less than one year after he was hired in the summer of 2022. (Photo by Jeff Bottari/NHLI via Getty Images)
NHLI via Getty Images
Can Tortorella fix this? Despite Vegas’s record, many of their underlying metrics remain strong this season. They’re 10th in shots on goal per game (28.6) but 15th in goals scored per game (3.12). Their special teams are excellent: the power play ranks fourth and the penalty kill is sixth. And they’re tied for second-fewest shots allowed per game (24.3) but are tied for 19th in goals allowed (3.07).
Advertisement
That points to the primary issue this season: inconsistent goaltending.
Akira Schmid has been the most reliable option. In a team-leading 34 appearances, he’s 16-10-6 with an .893 save percentage. But the 25-year-old has been used sparingly since the Olympic break — his last win came back on Feb. 4. He’s also relatively unproven in the post-season, with just 10 appearances to his name.
After his stellar performance in the 2023 playoffs, Adin Hill has taken a step backward. This season, the 29-year-old missed nearly three months of action with a lower-body injury. When he has been in the lineup, he has been average at best. He’s 9-9-5 for the year and just 4-6-2 in the month of March, with an .867 save percentage as the Golden Knights have been trying to get ready for post-season competition.
Advertisement
While Hill was sidelined, Vegas GM Kelly McCrimmon attempted to shore up his netminding by bringing in Carter Hart after he was reinstated by the league following sexual assault charges from a 2018 incident when he was part of Canada’s world junior championship team.
The 27-year-old went 5-3-3 with an .871 save percentage before suffering a lower-body injury in January.
Vegas is tight-lipped with injury information so it’s not yet clear when Hart will return. When he does, he’ll be reunited with Tortorella. Originally drafted in the second round by the Flyers in 2016, Hart played two seasons under Tortorella in Philadelphia before taking a leave of absence in January of 2024 ahead of his charges in the sexual assault case.
Advertisement
With Tortorella as his coach, Hart was 34-32-13 in 81 games played, with a .907 save percentage and 2.90 goals-against average.
Changing Of The Guard
Vegas has always been aggressive when pursuing roster upgrades, and this season has been no different. Last summer, McCrimmon reeled in one of the biggest free-agent fish when he traded for the rights to Mitch Marner, then signed him to an eight-year contract extension at $12 million per season. In January, the team completed a long-expected deal with the Calgary Flames to bring in defenseman Rasmus Andersson and at the trade deadline, Vegas shored up its playoff depth with forwards Cole Smith and Nic Dowd.
Advertisement
But some holes remain glaring. Original Golden Misfit William Karlsson, who plays a key role at center, has been sidelined since early November and there’s still no word on whether he’ll be fit to return this season. And defensive stalwart Alex Pietrangelo, who was an anchor on the blue line, is on season-ending injured reserve. The two-time Cup winner has one more year remaining on his contract, but his career could be over at age 36.
Competition Intensifying
As of Sunday night, the Golden Knights currently sit third in the Pacific Division — three points behind the Edmonton Oilers and four up on the Los Angeles Kings. According to MoneyPuck, their odds of making the playoffs are strong, at 84.7 percent.
Advertisement
The issue is, ‘What happens after that?’ At the moment, their first-round opponent would be the battle-tested Oilers, who haven’t let weak regular-season positioning stand in their way as they’ve bulldozed through to the Stanley Cup Final in both of the past two years. The Golden Knights are also 0-2-1 against the Oilers this season, most recently losing 4-3 in overtime on home ice last Thursday. Tortorella will get his opportunity to change that narrative next Saturday in Edmonton, in the teams’ final meeting of the season.
As for the Kings, they’ve had mixed results since making their own coaching change in hopes of avoiding their first playoff miss in five years. Since D.J. Smith took over from Jim Hiller on Mar. 1, Los Angeles is 5-5-4. The team has made up four points on the Golden Knights, who were first in the Pacific when the change was made but have gone 4-9-2 over the same timeframe.
If Vegas can get out of the Pacific — or slips to the second wild-card spot — that’s where the real trouble awaits.
Advertisement
Connor McDavid may have recently referred to the Pacific’s playoff battle as a ‘pillow fight’ but over in the Central, it’s gang warfare. The Colorado Avalanche, Dallas Stars and Minnesota Wild sit first, second and seventh overall in the NHL standings. All three squads have their sights set on serious playoff runs — if they don’t destroy each other first.
If there’s a silver lining for Torts, it’s that the Golden Knights should get a chance to collect some points with relative ease down the stretch. Six of their final eight games are against Pacific Division competition, starting with a visit from the league’s last-place Vancouver Canucks on Monday at T-Mobile Arena.