Bruce Cassidy is having the last laugh.
Don Sweeney, Cam Neely and the Bruins are stuck at home, making tee times, planning trips and mapping out offseason training. Perhaps they saw Cassidy and the Vegas Golden Knights advance to the Western Conference Final last night.
Vegas was unfazed by the vaunted Edmonton Oilers' attack. Leon Draisaitl was on track to etch his name into the playoff record books with his goal totals. The Golden Knights held him off the scoresheet in Games 5 and 6. Connor McDavid had five goals and five assists in the series, including two goals in Game 5 and another in Game 6 as he tried to will the Oilers to a Game 7. Cassidy and Vegas essentially said, 'Alright, that's fine. He'll get his, but the rest of the lineup will have to work for it.'
Edmonton's ridiculous power play still got its fill, beginning the series on a 5-for-9 (55.56 percent) in the first two games. But it finished 4-for-15 (26.67 percent).
Cassidy and the Golden Knights knew where to exploit the Oilers. Nine of Edmonton's 19 goals in the six games came on the power play, nine came at even-strength and one shorthanded. Vegas outscored the Oilers 18-9 at even-strength, doubling them up.
"Sometimes you're on your own team, and you've gotta look at the other team. They've got some pretty good players too, right?" Cassidy told reporters after the series-clinching win on Sunday. "Give them credit because they respond. You don't want to get too down on your team. Just build off the things [the Oilers] were doing to beat you. I thought we did that well even though we lost [earlier in the series]. ... That's where I thought we got better, learning from what they were doing well."
The former Boston bench boss pushed the right buttons, something Jim Montgomery had done with the B's all season until the playoffs.
It's unlikely the Bruins would have had the year they did with Cassidy behind the bench. Patrice Bergeron and David Krejci may not have spurned retirement. Sure, Cassidy wasn't very high on the totem pole of blame for Boston's shortcomings last season, but still, it was evidently time to move on with the message falling on deaf ears.
“Ultimately, a manager does what he believes is in the best interest of his organization, so that was the reason that we made the decision that we made with Pete,” Vegas general manager Kelly McCrimmon told reporters during the regular season. “That’s the reason that Boston made the decision that they made. ... You’re always evaluating where you’re at, where you’re going and what you want to look like trying to get there.”
Montgomery got the most out of Trent Frederic, a frequent flyer in Cassidy's doghouse. Frederic had a career season with 17 goals and 31 points. He was given plenty of runway, making up one-third of one of the top third lines in the league.
“I mean, I think it’s easy to do with [Montgomery]. He makes it clear,” Frederic said after a March 30 win over Columbus. “You know, it’s just a fun team to be a part of, and any role you can get on this team is a good role. I think everyone’s just trying to do their part.”
Pavel Zacha had a breakout season with 21 goals and 57 points, flashing his potential as a top-six center option, perhaps as soon as next season. Brandon Carlo's underlying numbers were right in line with what they have been throughout his career, but the eye test showed a much more poised defenseman, especially with the puck. After two consecutive seasons of a minus-two goal differential with Carlo on the ice at 5-on-5, the Bruins outscored opponents 59-27 with him on in that situation this season.
"There were times when I was pretty anxious for games, and I wanted to change that. So, I knew just being as confident as I could would lead to putting in the work," Carlo said on breakup day. "So I feel like for me, just taking steps mentally was a big part of that this year, for sure.”
All of it was aided by the breath of fresh air that is Montgomery, but when the going got tough in the playoffs, the Bruins didn't adjust while over-adjusting at the same time.
Montgomery completely changed his lineup in Game 5 against Florida, trying lines that had not been used at all prior, like Tyler Bertuzzi with Bergeron and David Pastrnak. He kept the Bergeron-Bertuzzi combination in Game 7, despite the previous warning signs. Montgomery could have taken a page from Cassidy, who was often stubborn to break up his lines, particularly the so-called 'Perfection Line' with Bergeron, Pastrnak and Brad Marchand.
So far in the playoffs, Cassidy has had a balanced approach with his top-nine forwards with strong duos on each line picking up the third forward, whether it be Jack Eichel and Jonathan Marchessault on the top line, Mark Stone and Chandler Stephenson on the second or William Karlsson and Reilly Smith on the third. He hasn't over-corrected at the first sign of trouble.
Montgomery got the most out of an injury-riddled Bruins team earlier in the season. Cassidy was dealt a similar hand in Vegas in terms of injuries throughout the year, especially in goal. Third-stringer Adin Hill (or fourth, depending on what you think of the aging Jonathan Quick. Maybe fifth-string if Robin Lehner were healthy) has stepped in admirably in place of injured backup Laurent Brossoit, who had strongly held it down with rookie Logan Thompson on the shelf as well.
“Bruce and his staff have done a great job at managing lineups that were really depleted for long stretches of time,” McCrimmon said. “I think that where you’ve seen them have a real positive impact is how well some of the players have played that have been called up from Henderson or that took on bigger responsibilities within our team.”
Meanwhile, Montgomery stubbornly deviated from the goaltending tandem that served Boston well throughout the year, putting Linus Ullmark among the Vezina frontrunners with Jeremy Swayman also near the league's best. The defensive lineup and breakout did not adjust to Florida's dogged forecheck, creating turnover after turnover.
"I mean, in hindsight, you can go back and look at everything, right?" Montgomery said during last week's season-ending press conference. "But the two things that come to mind would’ve been, what I’ve learned. I’ve already talked about the toll on the goaltenders and going to Sway a little earlier, what game that is, that’s debatable — again, that’s hindsight. Not starting with my normal lines for Game 5, I have my logic as to why it made sense, but it didn’t help us with our start, obviously, right? So, that I learned from. You know, I think I could have switched the D-pairings on who the matchups were a little bit quicker. We were shutting down one line really well, we weren’t shutting down another line really well, we did for two games, and we didn’t for five.”
Cassidy's tough love approach has clicked in Vegas. He's picked his spots well, and perhaps has adjusted his approach behind closed doors. After the Golden Knights' 5-1 loss to the Oilers in Game 2, Cassidy said his group "got out-teammated, for lack of a better term," before adding a vote of confidence that he felt the "togetherness" will return. His call-out worked when Vegas fired back with a 5-1 slog of their own in Game 4. Montgomery said of his self-assessment, "The number one thing is my job is to get the players to elevate their games and I didn’t do that.”
Eichel told reporters last week, "Bruce always wants to challenge our group. That’s why we’ve had success this year. Whenever we haven’t played well he’s done a good job of challenging us as a team and we’ve responded well to it. Give the coaching staff a lot of credit. They’ve put a lot of effort into preparing us for hockey games and then it’s on us to go out and execute."
Montgomery isn't going anywhere. He's one year into his contract, coming off guiding his team to the greatest regular season in NHL history, playoff collapse aside. He is still a rather fledgling NHL head coach, with 2022-23 being his third leading the bench and his second crack at the playoffs. Learning experiences will happen, and the Bruins crashing and burning a few weeks ago may be one of the best lessons he faces.
"The overriding [teachable moment] is, it’s my job to get the players to own the moment, seize the moment, and that didn’t happen, right? And that falls on me," Montgomery said. "I think with the hard times we went through, we have to learn from them. If we don’t learn from them, how are we going to grow? We will just repeat the same thing next year."
Cassidy learned from his previous faults, and it has paid off. Boston must hope Montgomery does the same.
