The Boston Bruins leadership team is restructuring and rebuilding its coaching staff before heading into the June draft and the July 1st free agency period. On Tuesday general manager Don Sweeney announced a number of additions, and subtractions, behind the Bruins bench.
Sweeney announced that the Bruins have hired Bruce Cassidy and Jay Pandolfo as assistant coaches, joining Joe Sacco and Bob Essensa on head coach Claude Julien’s staff. The franchise added Paul Whissel as the Bruins Director of Sports Performance and Rehab.
The franchise also announced that assistant coach Doug Jarvis’ services would not be needed for the 2016-17 Bruins season, much as they did with former assistant coach Doug Houda last month. After another disappointing end to the season, the Bruins management team is obviously looking for something new heading into the next.
Cassidy recently completed his fifth season as head coach of the Providence Bruins, having spent the three previous seasons with the club as an assistant. Cassidy’s previous NHL experience includes a stint as head coach of the Washington Capitals from 2002-04, and serving as an assistant coach with the Chicago Blackhawks for the 2005-06 season.
Paul Whissel earned a Doctorate degree in Physical Therapy at Daemen College and has previously worked with the Buffalo Bills, Boston University Hockey and University of Texas Basketball.
Pandolfo In, Jarvis Out
After a 15-year NHL playing career with the Bruins, the New York Islanders and the New Jersey Devils, Jay Pandolfo joined the bruins as a player development coach in 2014 immediately after his NHL retirement. He was promoted to Director of Player Development last year, and now moved behind the bench with Julien for 2016-17.
Pandolfo was originally drafted 32nd overall in the 1993 NHL Entry Draft by the New Jersey Devils. He spent 13 of his 15 NHL seasons with the Devils, winning two Stanley Cups along the way in 2000 and 2003. He played collegiately at Boston University from 1992-96, tallying 169 points in 136 games, and winning a NCAA Championship with the Terriers in 1995.
Doug Jarvis, for his part, becomes the next ‘victim’ of another disappointing Bruins season. Touted by Claude Julien for his lifelong experience and extensive resume when the bruins first hired him in 2010, Jarvis now finds himself on the outside looking in as the team tries to find solutions.
Jarvis, 61, won four Stanley Cups as a player in Montreal and a fifth as an assistant with Dallas in 1999, and holds the NHL’s ironman streak, having never missed a game in 13 NHL seasons with Montreal, Washington and Hartford. He followed that with 14 seasons as an assistant with the Stars organization in Minnesota and Dallas, two seasons as the head coach of Montreal’s AHL affiliate in Hamilton and four years as an assistant in Montreal. “I want to let you know how thrilled we are to be able to have Doug Jarvis join our staff,” said head coach Claude Julien at the time of his hiring in 2010.