Logan Thompson turned on the franchise that once employed him over the weekend, topping his old Vegas club in a Saturday shootout to wrap up Washington’s swing through the West.
For Vegas bench boss Bruce Cassidy, that defeat tipped the scales. The club dismissed Cassidy on Sunday — its longest-serving head coach ever — following four years on the job, and handed the reins to John Tortorella for what remains of the 2025-26 slate.
Although Thompson’s Saturday showing might have hastened the coach’s exit, the goaltender knows him well. The two spent a pair of seasons together in the desert, winning it all in 2022-23 with a Cup, before crossing paths once more wearing the maple leaf at this year’s Winter Games in Italy.
Thompson’s stint with the organization wound down on a slightly bitter note, yet he found no satisfaction in the firing. Speaking to RMNB, he said it’s never enjoyable to watch anyone lose work, Cassidy in particular, praising the coach’s wonderful family and children. He added that the chance to reconnect over in Milan had been a treat, and credited the coach directly for his own development, insisting he never would have hoisted hockey’s biggest prize without him — and that the same held true for the entire Vegas operation.
Drawing on his subject’s dozen years of NHL head-coaching experience, Thompson felt certain Cassidy would resurface elsewhere. He predicted the coach would steady himself, could stay away from the sport for however long he wished, and would ultimately secure another posting and thrive wherever he ended up.
Thompson spoke warmly about his days under the bench boss, but Sportsnet insider Elliotte Friedman pointed out that Cassidy’s rapport with the room had deteriorated long before the change.
Per Friedman, after three or four years the coach genuinely begins to wear on his roster.
The reporter traced the turning point to a session held during the franchise’s second-round clash with Edmonton the previous spring. By his account, a heated meeting played out involving the coach and a handful of his skaters just ahead of Game Five in that Oilers series, and the flare-up frayed things by the year’s end. He noted that certain players had voiced concerns to the front office, which backed their coach at the time, yet it grew obvious during the current campaign — and the club’s leadership eventually recognized as much — that whatever Cassidy was preaching no longer reached the group.
Thompson kept things complimentary in public when addressing the man who used to lead his bench, yet his own dealings with the Golden Knights’ leadership were hardly seamless. He asked to be moved once it became clear the starter’s job in the desert wouldn’t be his, with Adin Hill serving as the No. 1 option there instead.
His reportedly chilly rapport with Pete DeBoer — yet another former bench boss from the goalie’s desert days — as well as with Cassidy, both of whom served as assistants for Canada, may likewise have factored into the choice to leave him off the national 4 Nations Face-Off squad in 2025.
After arriving in the capital, the goaltender has delivered a few of his strongest performances fueled by motivation, particularly against Vegas, whom he now owns a 4-0-0 mark against.
On Monday, Thompson said it never gets old to topple an outfit that — put plainly — had no use for him, describing such wins as reliably enjoyable.
Beyond helping hammer the final nail into the coffin, his Saturday outing also underscored how shaky the Golden Knights have been between the pipes since his 2024 move to Washington. According to MoneyPuck, Hill carries an .866 stop rate this year and sits third-from-bottom league-wide at -13.8 in the goals-saved-above-expected category, whereas the Washington netminder’s mark of 29.1 in that same metric ranks runner-up across the league.
Even so, when the subject turned to his old club, Thompson chose to stay gracious. He said he holds enormous respect for everyone in that dressing room, reiterated that the title would have eluded him without Cassidy and the whole group, and pointed out that many of those skaters had been his teammates just a couple of months earlier in Italy.