Mike Milbury is on the record as not being a fan of how often Bruins coach Bruce Cassidy calls players out publicly. During his weekly appearance on The Greg Hill Show on Thursday, Milbury took things a step further and said he believes Cassidy is “starting to implode a little bit” and is in danger of losing the locker room.
“I think he’s been a really good coach for them for a while … but he is starting to implode a little bit,” Milbury said of Cassidy. “I don’t like the way he’s handled things recently.”
Cassidy is currently sidelined after contracting COVID-19, but prior to that it was clear he was trying to shake things up in order to jumpstart the struggling Bruins. Most recently, he made Jake DeBrusk and Erik Haula healthy scratches on Sunday, a move that prompted DeBrusk to go public with his request for the Bruins to trade him.
While Cassidy clearly lost DeBrusk, Milbury fears he could lose others if he continues to resort to public criticism and benchings.
“That’s an incredibly dangerous approach to take,” Milbury said. “When you start screaming at your players publicly and putting them on the line, that means you’ve used every bullet in your gun to try to get a guy to move in the direction you want him to go. If you start embarrassing him publicly, that can really set off a lot of emotions in the locker room with individual players and cause tons of resentment, and I think that will happen.
“Clearly they’re not playing particularly well,” Milbury added. “He’s trying to do things to shake the team up. In my mind, yeah, he’s putting himself in a position where he could lose the locker room.”
Listen to the full interview with Milbury below:
