Bruce Cassidy can get comfortable in Boston. He’s not going anywhere.
The Bruins on Wednesday announced Cassidy — promoted to interim head coach after the club fired Claude Julien on Feb. 8 — will stay on permanently as head coach.
Cassidy helped sparked a midseason turnaround after the Bruins cut ties with Julien after nearly a decade behind the Boston bench. The Bruins won seven of their first eight games after the change, and then went on a six-game winning streak during the last month of the season to earn a Stanley Cup playoff berth, the team’s first since 2014.
Cassidy led the B’s to an 18-8-1 regular-season record over the final two months of the season before the club ultimately bowed out to the Ottawa Senators in a six-game first-round series.
The future is relatively bright for Cassidy and the Bruins, though, as Boston continues to inject a shot of youth into the core players who remain from the team’s two Stanley Cup Final runs. Cassidy, who has spent nearly a decade in the organization, is especially familiar with the team’s younger players after spending five seasons as the head coach at Providence before joining Julien’s staff in Boston.
Cassidy also received plenty of support from his players, as many publicly backed him Tuesday at the team’s break-up day.
Thumbnail photo via Greg M. Cooper/USA TODAY Sports Images
