Ryan: After an emotional night at TD Garden, Bruce Cassidy is charting a new path - especially if Bruins await in spring

Bruce Cassidy said all of the right things in the days leading up to Monday’s anticipated return to TD Garden.

When asked of his six-year tenure behind the Bruins bench — a fruitful era in which Boston compiled a 245-108-46 record, captured a Presidents’ Trophy and came within one win of a Stanley Cup title — Cassidy focused on the good memories forged on Causeway Street, rather than harp on the manner in which his role on this Original Six franchise was suddenly uprooted.

Following Monday’s morning skate, Cassidy took the high road when it came to his own personal motivations leading into that night’s bout between the top teams in both the Eastern and Western Conference. 

"I think players go through that a lot more," Cassidy said when asked if Monday’s meeting offered more “juice” when it came to his own approach. "I saw it with Jack (Eichel) in Buffalo. You see it with different players that go back home. I think with coaches, it's a little different. You're just trying to game plan and give them as much information as needed without overloading them.

"They don't want to hear everything about Boston. We're a pretty good team in our own right. They want to hear the coach give them a plan and what the best way to beat them. That's what we'll focus on. Listen, we're competitive coaches, we want to win every game. Most coaches when they go back want to put their best foot forward, that's the way I look at it - show, 'Hey we're a pretty good team too,' and let the chips fall where they may."

Of course, by the time said chips were on the table and each party showed their final hand — it was Vegas and their first-year coach who had the last laugh. 

And try as he did to mask some of his emotions leading into what was an eventual 4-3 shootout victory for the Knights at TD Garden, such a facade was paper-thin in the moments following Cassidy's first game against his former team.

“Now that you brought it up… I’m used to hearing ‘Dirty Water’ at the end of the games, so I’m glad I didn’t hear it tonight,” Cassidy said with a smile after his team ended Boston’s record-setting 14-game win streak on home ice to open the 2022-23 season. 

Of course, any rational fan would have understood the emotional weight that Cassidy carried into Monday’s game as he walked into the lower bowl of the Garden from the visiting side of the arena. 

As familiar as Boston’s barn has been to Cassidy during his six years at the helm of the team, the last few days felt at times foreign, if not marked by pyrrhic melancholy. 

For all of the accolades that Cassidy and the Bruins achieved from 2017-22, such a sterling string of success tends to look dull in hindsight when factoring in the way in which tenure on the bench was ended — especially with Boston’s top brass and even a few players sharing similar sentiments about their former coach’s issues with messaging. 

For Cassidy, his sudden dismissal was not just a shock in terms of Boston’s short-term failings being weighed against his extended reign of winning hockey. It was a heartbreaking end to a job that he viewed as his lifelong dream.

For the former fleet-footed blueliner who idolized Orr while growing up in Ottawa, a role in the Bruins organization — especially at the reins behind the bench —  stood as the summit of his tumultuous coaching career. 

In the days following his firing, Cassidy still doled out heartfelt reverence for the team that moved on from him, stating that “The Bruin is basically tattooed to me”.

Such admiration for a team and city likely won’t wane over time, and that attitude was shared by the 17,000 fans at TD Garden who saluted Boston’s former coach with a roaring ovation in the early minutes of Monday’s showdown. 

Cassidy, always more than willing to toss out an extensive soliloquy to a press corps, was — for the first time in a long time — brief when asked about his reaction to such applause. 

“That’s something I’ll get choked up about obviously, probably in about three seconds,” Cassidy said after the game. “I appreciate it. It’s that simple. I appreciate it.”  

Of course, for all of the narratives surrounding Cassidy’s removal, it does seem at this juncture of the season that all parties have made the most of such a split.

Even with Boston’s loss to Vegas, you’d be hard-pressed to find a soul willing to downplay Jim Montgomery’s impact on a B’s squad that is still off to a 20-3-1 start. 

And while the Vegas desert is a far cry from Cassidy’s previous surroundings up here in New England, his fingerprints can be found all over the Knights’ strong start to the 2022-23 campaign — especially when it comes to shoring up a defensive structure that served as the team’s weak line far too many times last year.

Some of those D-zone principles and a culture of accountability have been part of Cassidy’s coaching DNA for years. But after more than a decade with an organization like Boston, Cassidy feels as though there are plenty of key lessons that he brought with him to his new post.

“The appreciation of being around solid professionals like Zdeno Chara, Bergy obviously,” Cassidy said of what he’s brought to Vegas. “Watched the growth of Marchy and Pasta, the growth of Tuukka. I could go down the list. 

“The culture that was created — and I’ve said this before, Claude laid a terrific foundation. We built off that, and Monty’s continued to do the same. When I was younger, I didn’t maybe appreciate it that much. I was thinking, ‘This is how we’re going to play, these are my matchups.’ It’s deeper than that.” 

At this point, Cassidy isn’t dwelling on any “what could have been” scenarios or pained regrets from his time in Boston. Now, it’s all about charting a new course ahead with the Knights — especially with his desire to get his name stamped on Lord Stanley’s Cup still unfulfilled. 

"Yep, it's over,” Cassidy said of finally crossing Monday’s matchup off Vegas’ schedule. “There's been a lot of talk, and some of that's on me. Some of it's just the way it's played out. But as I said, I really enjoyed my time here. I've been focused on Vegas, but this game … It's just not an ordinary game.”

Cassidy may not be scheduled back in Boston until the 2023-24 campaign. But based on the way both the Bruins and Knights are faring, he certainly wouldn’t say no to a reunion in May or June. 

“I would like to be here in the spring,” Cassidy said. “Wouldn’t that be nice, eh?”