It came down to the last 26 seconds of regulation time.
After Mark Stone banked a snap shot from the high slot off the left post and past Jonathan Quick, the Vegas Golden Knights opened their season with a 4-3 victory over the Los Angeles Kings.
Behind the bench, Bruce Cassidy earned his first win with his new team — and became the first coach out of this summer’s record-tying 10 new hires to do so.
David Quinn was the first new coach to debut, last weekend in Prague as part of the NHL Global Series. But his San Jose Sharks dropped both their games against the Nashville Predators, 4-1 and 3-2.
NHL on TNT panellist Anson Carter believes this summer’s dramatic coaching turnover was a case of clubs making up for lost time.
“I thought teams were a little bit hesitant for the last year or so to make any coaching changes because of the lack of revenues due to the COVID situation,” he said during a conference call last week. “Now that revenues are starting to bounce back, I feel like teams are a little bit more comfortable with putting more pressure on the coaching staff to to win now, or else they could possibly be replaced.”
Let go by the Boston Bruins on June 6, Cassidy was unemployed for just eight days before he signed a five-year deal with the Golden Knights.
He comes to his new team with a strong resumé: six straight playoff appearances with Boston, including a trip to the Stanley Cup final in 2019, and a Jack Adams Award for coach of the year for the 2019-20 season when the Bruins sat at the top of the standings when the regular season was paused due to the pandemic.
On Tuesday, Cassidy was happy to see his team stay engaged in their back-and-forth contest where neither side ever led by more than one goal.
“I think for a coach, you’re always worried when you don’t know your team that well,” he said after the game. “It’s our first league game. What will happen when things don’t go well?
“It’s always, to me, a sign of good character in the room when a team is resilient. So that’s a big plus for me, no matter how the score turned out.”
A former player and coach who’s now in his second year as an NHL on TNT analyst, Rick Tocchet pointed out that expectations are different across this year’s new crew of bench bosses.
“You’ve got Cassidy and Vegas, where he’s kind of trying to get them over the top — Stanley Cup or bust,” he said. “Same thing with Pete DeBoer going to Dallas. Can they take the next step and be relevant again?”
Tocchet is curious to see what rookie head coach Derek Lalonde brings to the Detroit Red Wings.
“These last three, four years haven’t been that great, but I think (Steve) Yzerman did a hell of a job of acquiring some really good hockey players,” he said. “Lalonde has got a pretty damn good pedigree, so I think you’re looking for a big improvement from Detroit.”
Asked which coach will have the biggest impact on his team, Carter pointed to John Tortorella in Philadelphia.
“I want to watch and listen to his pressers,” he said. “He’s already been talking about the organization, the culture within the room. So I want to see how Torts is able to connect with that Flyers team that’s underachieved.
“You know how fiery Torts can be with the media at times. I know his players love playing for him, so I want to see how he’s able to adjust and change that culture in Philadelphia, to one that gets back in the post-season.”
Tortorella will debut with his new team at Wells Fargo Center on Thursday, when the Flyers host the New Jersey Devils. DeBoer’s Dallas Stars also open Thursday — on the road in Nashville — and Lalonde’s Red Wings start their season on home ice against the Montreal Canadiens on Friday.
Look for two new faces as part of Wednesday’s six-game slate. Jim Montgomery takes his Boston Bruins into Washington, while Luke Richardson’s Chicago Blackhawks will form the opposition after the Colorado Avalanche raise their Stanley Cup banner in Denver.
On Thursday, Lane Lambert will make his NHL head-coaching debut with the New York Islanders. They’ll host the Florida Panthers, where Paul Maurice will coach his 1,685th-career NHL game with his fifth different team after resigning from the Winnipeg Jets last December.
Ten coaches have debuted with new teams to start the same season just once before, in 1997-98. Per the NHL, seven of those coaches had their teams in playoff position at the end of October that year, and eight eventually qualified for the post-season in the then-26-team league.
Pat Burns was named the Jack Adams Award winner in his first season with the Boston Bruins, but his team was knocked out of the playoffs in the first round by the Washington Capitals. Also in his first year, Washington coach Ron Wilson got his team to its first-ever Stanley Cup final before being swept by the ultimate veteran — the NHL’s winningest coach of all time and nine-time Cup champion Scotty Bowman and his Detroit Red Wings.
