{"id":44616,"date":"2026-05-14T07:26:34","date_gmt":"2026-05-14T07:26:34","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/44616\/"},"modified":"2026-05-14T07:26:34","modified_gmt":"2026-05-14T07:26:34","slug":"vegas-has-every-right-to-say-no-to-edmonton-bringing-in-bruce-cassidy-says-nhl-big-wig","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/44616\/","title":{"rendered":"Vegas has every right to say no to Edmonton bringing in Bruce Cassidy, says NHL big wig"},"content":{"rendered":"

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<\/a> or any other NHL team to negotiate with former VGK coach Bruce Cassidy. VGK can refuse such permission if it wants to do so.<\/p>\n

In an interview<\/a> with host Jeff Marek, Burke started out by saying he didn\u2019t like that the news was leaked, as that was hard on Edmonton Oilers<\/a> coach Kris Knoblauch. \u201cThat should have been done much more quietly in my view. Because now you\u2019ve got a dead man walking, the coach. No one should be put through that. Now there\u2019s a dead man walking \u2014 and I think it\u2019s really wrong that it leaked out. I don\u2019t know who to blame. But I don\u2019t 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\u2019s got. That\u2019s well respected within the industry. But to say no and leak it, whoever leaked it, that\u2019s really bad.\u201d<\/p>\n

Marek said it was the general rule in the NHL to let a head coach sign with another team after he\u2019d been fired. He wondered if the NHL would step in and ask Vegas to let Cassidy sign with another team, as VGK\u2019s action now comes across as \u201creally petty.\u201d<\/p>\n

Burke didn\u2019t see the NHL intervening.<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t think so because it\u2019s a divisional rival. If they were talking to Columbus or someone else, it would be different. But they\u2019re talking to a divisional rival. I could see them say no right to the rest of the summer.\u201d<\/p>\n

Burke\u2019s comment comes after earlier today NHL insider Elliotte Friedman reported that teams interested in Cassidy would eventually get to negotiate with him.<\/p>\n

There\u2019s an onus on Vegas to let their former coach do so, Friedman suggested on his 32 Thoughts podcast. \u201cSo unless Cassidy doesn\u2019t want to coach the Oilers or the Kings, sooner or later, unless there\u2019s a good reason that we don\u2019t know about, they\u2019re going to have to grant permission.\u201d<\/p>\n

My take<\/p>\n

1. Rats!<\/p>\n

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\u2019m missing something here, their two statements contradict one another.<\/p>\n

I can\u2019t say I\u2019ve ever heard of an NHL team refusing an old head coach taking a new job with any other squad. But that doesn\u2019t mean such a refusal hasn\u2019t happened. Burke makes it sound like a run-of-the-mill kind of thing, which has happened routinely in the past.<\/p>\n

2. Given Burke\u2019s time with the league and his many years as an executive with NHL teams in Hartfod, Vancouver, Anaheim, Calgary, Toronto and Pittsburgh, I\u2019m leaning to his reading of reality.<\/p>\n

This doesn\u2019t mean he\u2019s right, and it doesn\u2019t mean that he knows what will happen with Cassidy\u2019s situation, but he\u2019s got far more experience with this kind of thing than most people. He\u2019s a credible source.<\/p>\n

Yes, Friedman is also a credible source, but until we hear clarification from the NHL itself, or Vegas or Edmonton, I\u2019ll 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.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s not how I want it myself, as I think Cassidy is an excellent fit in Edmonton, but that\u2019s what I\u2019m gong with until someone proves Burke wrong.<\/p>\n

3. I\u2019ll add this \u2014 and, yes this is partly the Oilers fan in me speaking \u2014 but Bruce Cassidy was the coach who took Vegas to Stanley Cup success. He did what no other coach in Vegas had done.<\/p>\n

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\u2019s work.<\/p>\n

Just now, McCrimmon, McPhee and Foley don\u2019t legally owe Cassidy anything but his $4.5 million salary right now. That\u2019s the fact. And he can collect it while sitting at home with his wife and children.<\/p>\n

But given their shared history, given Cassidy\u2019s 2023 Stanley Cup success, if they don\u2019t 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.<\/p>\n

It would be mighty bad karma for the Vegas hockey operation to block Cassidy, who they already hammered by sacking him. It appears they\u2019re perfectly free to block him now, at least if that\u2019s their idea of gratitude.<\/p>\n

ult of Hockey and the Edmonton Journal? $1 for six months. Let\u2019s do this!<\/a><\/p>\n

At the Cult of Hockey<\/p>\n

Who is Oilers coaching target Bruce Cassidy? A man with one obsession<\/a><\/p>\n

Vegas will have to grant permission for Oilers to negotiate with Cassidy: NHL insider<\/a><\/p>\n

LEAVINS: What to do with Connor Murphy?\u00a0<\/a><\/p>\n

\u2018Unprofessional and classless\u2019: Hockey world reacts to Vegas blocking Oilers talking to Cassidy<\/a><\/p>\n

Vegas\u2019 blocking of Cassidy\/Oilers negotiation an attempt to drive McDavid out of Edmonton: NHL insider speculates<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"This in from Brian Burke, the former NHL GM and ex-NHL director of hockey operations, his take on…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":44617,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[3619,19794,18349,51,52,263,2164,2971,17466,19796,19795,647,2960,8434,271,19797,5196,48,95,1796],"class_list":["post-44616","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-edmonton","tag-anaheim","tag-brian-burke","tag-bruce-cassidy","tag-calgary","tag-edmonton","tag-edmonton-oilers","tag-elliotte-friedman","tag-florida-panthers","tag-head-coach","tag-jeff-marek","tag-kelly-mccrimmon","tag-kings","tag-las-vegas","tag-nevada","tag-nhl","tag-nhl-teams","tag-pittsburgh","tag-toronto","tag-vancouver","tag-vegas-golden-knights"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44616","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=44616"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44616\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/44617"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=44616"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=44616"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=44616"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}