Vegas Golden Knights fire Bruce Cassidy, hire John Tortorella as new head coach

The 2025-26 campaign may be a rollercoaster for the Vegas Golden Knights, but it's clear the team is still on a prolonged drop.

If anything, despite being 90% through the ride, they could now be teetering on the edge of a 90 degree drop.

Either way, Bruce Cassidy won't be joining the team for the rest of the ride, as the Golden Knights announced just before 5:00 Eastern Time that he would be relieved of his duties as head coach of the team.

The move comes after the Golden Knights lost 5-4 in a shootout to the Washington Capitals; Vegas had actually rallied from 3-0 down to take a 4-3 lead before Dylan Strome forced the game to overtime. The loss marked the Golden Knights' third consecutive loss and seventh in their last 10 games. As a result of their losing run, the Golden Knights ceded control of second place in the Pacific Division to the Edmonton Oilers and now sit just four points ahead of the Los Angeles Kings for third.

Cassidy finishes his tenure with the Golden Knights with a 178-95-43 regular-season record to his name. He helped win the Golden Knights their first Stanley Cup in franchise history during his first season with the team (2022-23), yet the team's following two postseason appearances never reached that same height. The 2024 postseason saw the Golden Knights race out to a 2-0 lead against the Dallas Stars before losing the first-round series in seven. The 2025 season would also see the Golden Knights go out with a whimper; despite winning their first-round series with the Minnesota Wild, Vegas would lose their second-round series with the Oilers in five games.

In his place, Vegas will appoint John Tortorella as the team's new head coach. He'll act as the fourth head coach in the Golden Knights' nine-season existence; Gerard Gallant and Peter DeBoer served the role prior to Cassidy's arrival.

Tortorella has a 770-648-37-165 (wins, losses, ties, overtime losses) record as an NHL head coach. Like Cassidy, he's won a Stanley Cup during his career, doing so in 2004 while coaching the Tampa Bay Lightning. His previous achievements include winning the Jack Adams Award twice (2004 and 2017) and earning the Columbus Blue Jackets their first-ever playoff series win during the 2019 postseason.

His first task as the Golden Knights' head coach will be to get the rollercoaster that is their season pointed upward once again. His first game will be on Monday against the Vancouver Canucks, though he will get two days to work with before the team's next game on Thursday against the Calgary Flames. After that is a four-game road trip that not only takes the team to Edmonton but also sees them contest the first of two games against the Seattle Kraken, who are just five points back of the Golden Knights with ten games to play.

In total, the Golden Knights have eight games left in their regular-season schedule.

The team has yet to clinch a playoff spot.