With just eight games remaining in the NHL regular season, the Vegas Golden Knights have fired head coach Bruce Cassidy and replaced him with John Tortorella.

Cassidy was behind the bench for the Golden Knights' Stanley Cup win in 2023. However, Vegas is very much a "what have you done for me lately" organization. A team that was expected to be a strong Western Conference contender, Vegas is instead barely above the playoff bar while having lost 12 of its last 16 games.

Tortorella is being brought in to provide the underachieving Golden Knights with a wake-up call. The hope is that this coaching change will jolt the team and provide a new coach bump that many teams experience (eg. Columbus). Torts' no-nonsense messaging has a shelf life, so if he serves beyond 2-3 seasons, it's a bonus for the Golden Knights.

Any coach on the hot seat can point to struggling goaltending, and that has clearly been the case for Vegas. All four Golden Knights goalies have a save percentage under .895 this season, while both Adin Hill and Akira Schmid have a sub-.880 save percentage while allowing an average of around three goals per game since the Olympic break. Fantasy hockey goaltending is highly dependent on the team in front of the goalie, so different ideas from a new coach may result in short-term improvements in goaltending stats.

Torts' systems may help the team overall, but they may also mean that prominent scorers such as Jack Eichel and Mitch Marner sacrifice creativity in the name of defense. A coaching change can only help the likes of slumping Vegas scorers, though. Tomas Hertl is without a point in his last 11 games, while Mark Stone has just two points (both goals) in his last seven games after producing at well over a point per game for most of the season. It may be a matter of these players being due when they shake their slumps, but the easy narrative will be to credit the coaching change.

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Players this helps, in order:

Hill

Schmid

Hertl

Stone

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Players this hurts, in order:

Marner

Eichel

Various other Vegas scorers

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This coaching change is being discussed in the Forum – give your take here.