LAS VEGAS — Bruce Cassidy wasn’t out of a job for long after being hired to coach the Vegas Golden Knights on Tuesday, little more than a week after being fired by the Boston Bruins.

Cassidy becomes the Golden Knights’ third coach and replaces Peter DeBoer, who was fired after Vegas missed the playoffs for the first time in its five-year history.

“I am excited to join an organization that shares my commitment to winning and can’t wait to get to work with the talent that has been assembled in Vegas,” Cassidy said in a statement. “It’s been impressive to watch the city embrace the Golden Knights from afar, and my family and I look forward to becoming a part of that.”

Cassidy, 57, had a 245-108-46 record and led the Bruins to six straight playoff appearances after replacing Claude Julien in the final months of the 2016-17 campaign. He was fired on June 6, a month after the Bruins lost a seven-game first-round series to Carolina.

Vegas becomes Cassidy’s third stop as a head coach after a two-year stint with Washington (2002-04), where the Ottawa native worked under Knights president of hockey operations George McPhee, who was the general manager at the time. Cassidy coached the Capitals to a playoff appearance in his first season after compiling a record of 39-29-8 during the 2002-03 regular season.

Cassidy boasts an overall record of 292-155-53, accompanied by 38 postseason victories. His most successful campaign was in 2018-19, when the Bruins reached the Stanley Cup Final, where they lost to St. Louis in seven games. Cassidy led Boston to the best record in the NHL (44-14-12) the following season, when he won the Jack Adams Award as the top coach in 2019-20.

Cassidy goes from coaching a veteran-laden team in transition in Boston to coaching one of the most talented rosters in the league.

“The Golden Knights are very pleased to have Bruce come in to coach our team,” General Manager Kelly McCrimmon said in a statement. “His success in Boston over six years is extremely impressive. His teams have had a clear identity, having been among the very best in the NHL in terms of goals for, goals against, goal differential and special teams. This is the right coach for our team at this time.”

DeBoer was 98-50-12 in three seasons with the Golden Knights and led them to back-to-back semifinal appearances his first two seasons, but was let go May 16 after they missed the playoffs for the first time in franchise history this season.

Cassidy inherits a team that was pegged as one of the best in the Western Conference prior to last season, but underachieved and collapsed down the stretch in part due to a series of injuries. Per NHLInjuryViz.com, the Golden Knights finished with the second-highest man-games lost with 505.

Nevertheless, in control of its destiny with five games left in the season, Vegas lost three straight shootouts down the stretch to fall out of contention. They lost five of their last seven and went 0-2-3 against the last five non-playoff teams they faced.

RANGERS: Two days after being eliminated in the Eastern Conference Final, the New York Rangers still haven’t gotten over their loss.

“You go on a great run like that, so many people reach out to tell you how proud they are of you, of your group, but right now it stings,” forward Chris Kreider said Monday. “It’s hard to be proud a couple of days after you get bounced like that.”

Linemate Mika Zibanejad agreed, adding: “Hard time thinking about it without getting emotional again and talking about it. It’s going to take whatever time to kind of get over this, be able to use this as a motivation going into next year and this summer, but I haven’t really dealt with it completely yet.”

After a season in which they had a marked turnaround under new coach Gerard Gallant – finishing with 52 wins – the Rangers had an even more remarkable playoff run, winning five elimination games in the first two rounds to reach the conference final. They won the first two games against Tampa Bay and led 2-0 midway through Game 3.

That’s when their offense stalled. After outscoring the Lightning 11-4 up to that point, the Rangers were outscored 12-3 the rest of the series while losing four straight.

“I think we ran out of gas,” Gallant said. “Not to make an excuse, but when you play 20 games in 40 days at playoff hockey, it’s pretty tough. I’m proud of our guys. I think we took major steps and it’s going to help us in the future.”

Kreider believes the Rangers need to only look at the Lightning team they just lost to, sending the two-time defending champions to the Stanley Cup Final for a third straight year, for inspiration. He referenced when Tampa Bay was swept in the first round of the 2019 playoffs by Columbus and then-Blue Jackets coach John Tortorella said “We’ve created a monster.”

“Obviously, we felt like we could have gone the distance, but that sting is what’s going to push us over the edge,” Kreider said.

With 26 comeback wins in the regular season and four more in the playoffs, the Rangers embraced the “No Quit In New York” slogan that was on signs, T-shirts and rally towels.

“‘No Quit In New York’ doesn’t mean we will never lose, but the one thing that we didn’t do was we did not quit,” Zibanejad said. “Didn’t matter the situation, we knew we were always going to either bounce back or keep fighting. And I think that’s one of the biggest reasons we got so far.”

There were plenty of bright spots throughout the season, including Kreider’s 52 goals in the regular season and 10 in the playoffs. Artemi Panarin had 96 points (22 goals, 74 assists) during the season and 16 in the postseason, and Zibanejad followed up on his 81-point season (29 goals and 52 assists) with 10 goals and 14 assists in the playoffs. Igor Shesterkin was superb in goal, making clutch save after clutch save all year.

Asked if he viewed the season as a success, Gallant said, “100%,” and he was optimistic about the future.

“We got young kids that are getting older,” the coach said. “We got a nice window here coming up if everybody keeps developing and playing well. I don’t think we have to do a whole lot much different. We’re going to see what’s going to happen with free agents and stuff like that, but I’m real happy with our group.”

The Rangers have a long list of pending free agents. Ryan Strome and trade-deadline acquisitions Andrew Copp, Frank Vatrano, Tyler Motte and Justin Braun are all unrestricted. The list of restricted free agents include Kappo Kakko, backup goalie Alexandar Georgiev, and Sammy Blais – who was acquired last summer but played only 14 games before an ACL injury ended his season in November.

“There’s a lot of free agents and restricted free agents,” Gallant said. “(Chris) Drury has a lot of work to do, like every GM, in the next couple of weeks.”

Free agency begins on July 13.

PENGUINS: The Pittsburgh Penguins promoted Chris Pryor to assistant general manager, one of several front-office moves made by General Manager Ron Hextall.

The 61-year-old Pryor spent last season as Pittsburgh’s director of player personnel, which included overseeing the team’s scouting efforts in North America and Europe. Pryor will assist Hextall in hockey operations while still keeping his hand in the team’s personnel decisions.

The Penguins also named Andy Saucier hockey operations analyst/pro personnel. The role, which was created exclusively for Saucier, makes him a liaison between the club’s coaching staff and analytics department.

Hextall also promoted Erik Heasley to general manager of the franchise’s American Hockey League affiliate in Wilkes-Barre/Scranton.