Friedman: Cassidy\u2019s \u2018frayed relationship\u2019 with Golden Knights players began in Oilers\u2019 playoff series<\/p>\n
Sportsnet\u2019s\u00a0Elliotte Friedman says the fracture between Vegas Golden Knights players and former head coach Bruce Cassidy started during last year\u2019s playoff series against the Edmonton Oilers<\/a>.In a stunning move on Sunday afternoon, the Golden Knights fired Cassidy<\/a> and replaced him with a former Cup winner in John Tortorella for the remainder of the season.Vegas\u2019 regular season has not gone to plan. Sitting in third in the Pacific Division<\/a> with a 32-26-16 record, Friedman believes this is a desperation move for the Oilers\u2019 rival, who may have had a hand in Cassidy\u2019s demise.\u201cLast year in the Edmonton series where the Oilers beat them, I heard right before that series ended, before game five, there was a really tense meeting between Cassidy and some of those players,\u201d said Friedman<\/a>.<\/p>\n \u201cAnd I think at the end of last year, it kind of frayed their relationship. I know some players said some things to management. Management backed Cassidy, but it seems to be pretty obvious this year, and obviously, Vegas management realized it too; his message just wasn\u2019t getting through anymore.<\/p>\n \u201cThe relationship between Cassidy and the players wasn\u2019t as strong as it used to be, and sometimes it\u2019s just time.\u201d<\/p>\n The Golden Knights have been mired in an ugly run post-Olympics, winning just once in their last seven games. After losing to the Oilers<\/a> on Thursday night 4-3 in overtime, Vegas came back from a three-goal deficit on Saturday night against the Washington Capitals, but lost in a shootout.<\/p>\n Cassidy helped guide the Golden Knights to a Stanley Cup in 2023 after defeating the Oilers in the second round of the playoffs. He finished with a 178-99-43 record over four seasons.<\/p>\n A lot of money has been spent recently.\u00a0In the off-season, the Golden Knights signed Mitch Marner to an eight-year, $96 million contract. Then in October, management extended Jack Eichel to an eight-year, $108 contract.<\/p>\n Looking to kickstart a team that has good underlying numbers<\/a>, but either can\u2019t get a save at the right time, or a goal, they\u2019ll turn to Tortorella.<\/p>\n But as Friedman points out, if Cassidy\u2019s style and personality wasn\u2019t resonating anymore, the Golden Knights aren\u2019t replacing him with \u201cSanta Claus.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cWhen you make the change this late in the year, you don\u2019t have a lot of options. Tortorella has been very successful. He could be very demanding, yes, but there are a lot of players who have enjoyed playing for him,\u201d said Friedman.<\/p>\n \u2018Tremendous coach\u2019The Oilers and Golden Knights are likely to meet in the first round of the playoffs. Each team has eight games to play, and will meet<\/a> one more time in the regular season on Saturday night at Rogers Place.Oilers head coach Kris Knoblauch was asked<\/a> his thoughts about the coaching change after practice on Monday.<\/p>\n \u201cFirst of all, Bruce is a tremendous coach, and you look at his track record and the amount of winning he\u2019s been doing, and I guess Vegas was not in a position that they like where they are,\u201d said Knoblauch.<\/p>\n \u201cI assume they\u2019ll be changing their style up a little bit. Obviously, they have their players and the amount of time they have in their season, it\u2019s not going to change a whole lot. But it\u2019ll probably give them a boost, and they\u2019ll very have a lot of urgency to get in the playoffs, because, similar to us, the season is winding down, and those games are important. Vegas, they are a good team.\u201d<\/p>\n Michael Menzies is an Oilersnation columnist and has been the play-by-play voice of the Bonnyville Pontiacs in the AJHL since 2019. With seven years news experience as the Editor-at-Large of Lakeland Connect in Bonnyville, he also collects vinyl, books, and stomach issues. Follow him on X at Menzies_4.<\/p>\n ARTICLE PRESENTED BY bet365<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Friedman: Cassidy\u2019s \u2018frayed relationship\u2019 with Golden Knights players began in Oilers\u2019 playoff series Sportsnet\u2019s\u00a0Elliotte Friedman says the fracture…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":532095,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[5125],"tags":[198,146,5300,5,4,24],"class_list":{"0":"post-532094","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-edmonton-oilers","8":"tag-edmonton","9":"tag-edmonton-oilers","10":"tag-edmontonoilers","11":"tag-hockey","12":"tag-nhl","13":"tag-oilers"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nhl\/116321314629110162","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/532094","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=532094"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/532094\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/532095"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=532094"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=532094"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=532094"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}