This in from Brian Burke, the former NHL GM and ex-NHL director of hockey operations, his take on The Sheet podcast that Vegas does not have to give permission to the Edmonton Oilers or any other NHL team to negotiate with former VGK coach Bruce Cassidy. VGK can refuse such permission if it wants to do so.
In an interview with host Jeff Marek, Burke started out by saying he didn’t like that the news was leaked, as that was hard on Edmonton Oilers coach Kris Knoblauch. “That should have been done much more quietly in my view. Because now you’ve got a dead man walking, the coach. No one should be put through that. Now there’s a dead man walking — and I think it’s really wrong that it leaked out. I don’t know who to blame. But I don’t mind if they (VGK) said no. You have to have permission to talk to someone. They can say no for the next 12 months and pay him off in full, or however long he’s got. That’s well respected within the industry. But to say no and leak it, whoever leaked it, that’s really bad.”
Marek said it was the general rule in the NHL to let a head coach sign with another team after he’d been fired. He wondered if the NHL would step in and ask Vegas to let Cassidy sign with another team, as VGK’s action now comes across as “really petty.”
Burke didn’t see the NHL intervening.
“I don’t think so because it’s a divisional rival. If they were talking to Columbus or someone else, it would be different. But they’re talking to a divisional rival. I could see them say no right to the rest of the summer.”
Burke’s comment comes after earlier today NHL insider Elliotte Friedman reported that teams interested in Cassidy would eventually get to negotiate with him.
There’s an onus on Vegas to let their former coach do so, Friedman suggested on his 32 Thoughts podcast. “So unless Cassidy doesn’t want to coach the Oilers or the Kings, sooner or later, unless there’s a good reason that we don’t know about, they’re going to have to grant permission.”
My take
1. Rats!
2. Burke and Friedman are both NHL heavyweights when it comes to knowing the written and unwritten rules of how NHL teams can and should operate. Unless I’m missing something here, their two statements contradict one another.
I can’t say I’ve ever heard of an NHL team refusing an old head coach taking a new job with any other squad. But that doesn’t mean such a refusal hasn’t happened. Burke makes it sound like a run-of-the-mill kind of thing, which has happened routinely in the past.
2. Given Burke’s time with the league and his many years as an executive with NHL teams in Hartfod, Vancouver, Anaheim, Calgary, Toronto and Pittsburgh, I’m leaning to his reading of reality.
This doesn’t mean he’s right, and it doesn’t mean that he knows what will happen with Cassidy’s situation, but he’s got far more experience with this kind of thing than most people. He’s a credible source.
Yes, Friedman is also a credible source, but until we hear clarification from the NHL itself, or Vegas or Edmonton, I’ll go with the notion that Vegas can indeed stop Cassidy moving to the Oilers so long as Vegas is paying out the remainder of his contract.
That’s not how I want it myself, as I think Cassidy is an excellent fit in Edmonton, but that’s what I’m gong with until someone proves Burke wrong.
3. I’ll add this — and, yes this is partly the Oilers fan in me speaking — but Bruce Cassidy was the coach who took Vegas to Stanley Cup success. He did what no other coach in Vegas had done.
The Vegas franchise, including GM Kelly McCrimmon, president of hockey ops George McPhee and owner Bill Foley, all won big in part due to Cassidy’s work.
Just now, McCrimmon, McPhee and Foley don’t legally owe Cassidy anything but his $4.5 million salary right now. That’s the fact. And he can collect it while sitting at home with his wife and children.
But given their shared history, given Cassidy’s 2023 Stanley Cup success, if they don’t grant Cassidy the freedom to pick his next job, you may call it ruthless if you like, but it also reeks of being small, petty and fearful.
It would be mighty bad karma for the Vegas hockey operation to block Cassidy, who they already hammered by sacking him. It appears they’re perfectly free to block him now, at least if that’s their idea of gratitude.
ult of Hockey and the Edmonton Journal? $1 for six months. Let’s do this!
At the Cult of Hockey
Who is Oilers coaching target Bruce Cassidy? A man with one obsession
Vegas will have to grant permission for Oilers to negotiate with Cassidy: NHL insider
LEAVINS: What to do with Connor Murphy?
‘Unprofessional and classless’: Hockey world reacts to Vegas blocking Oilers talking to Cassidy