Why did the Golden Knights wait so long for a coaching change?
The Vegas Golden Knights sent shockwaves through the hockey world over the weekend when they dismissed head coach Bruce Cassidy and brought in experienced bench boss John Tortorella.
With the Golden Knights underperforming their talent level all season long, it’s less surprising that they wanted to make a change than it is when they did it.
Despite their struggles, Vegas is on track to make the Stanley Cup Playoffs, and Tortorella took over with just nine games to go before the end of the regular season.
On Wednesday’s episode of Daily Faceoff LIVE, host Tyler Yaremchuk and co-host and former NHL goaltender Carter Hutton were joined by former NHL video coach Steve Peters to discuss the timing of Vegas’ change and how unusual it is to swap coaches so close to the playoffs.
Tyler Yaremchuk: The Golden Knights win their first game with John Tortorella behind the bench. Before we kind of get into the minutiae of all of that, I guess just kind of a blanket opening question, did you view the Golden Knights as a broken team or a team that needed a coaching change, Petey?
Steve Peters: You know it’s funny because with eight games to go, this is a hard time to make a change. There’s not enough runway for a coach to make adjustments to system play, and even the motivation which Torts is great at, it’s not much of a runway. If you’re gonna make this move, why didn’t it happen a little bit earlier? I do think this is a team that needed a change, and when you look at the Vegas Golden Knights and their management and ownership, they don’t wait. They don’t care about your feelings; they don’t care if it’s your birthday. You’re gonna get fired like that. This is just the way things go for the Vegas Golden Knights. This is the worst statistical season for the Knights; they’re on pace to have their worst winning percentage since it became a franchise back in 17-18. They’re not gonna sit around for that, like, they’re making changes, and so I’m not surprised they made a change. With Bruce Cassidy, we’ve talked about it on this show, too, of what he’s like in the room, and it’s hard, man. It’s hard when you have a coach that coaches like Cassidy in the room every single day. It kind of wears on you, and I think that was showing in their top players. So yes, I think it was time for a change. I’m just surprised they didn’t do it a little bit earlier.
You can watch the full segment and the rest of the episode here…