NHL teams

The Capitals have struggled all season despite one of the league's highest payrolls. The team is stuck at the bottom of the NHL standings with 18 points.

Washington has seen many of their top defense players depart, but the team has also had trouble scoring despite a lineup that includes Jaromir Jagr, Peter Bondra and Robert Lang.

Cassidy replaced Ron Wilson in June 2002 with no NHL coaching experience. He went 47-47-9-7 overall with Washington.

Cassidy sometimes struggled to get through to the veteran players of the team. His aggressive coaching style also didn't mesh with the top NHL players.

His firing follows an incident last week in which Cassidy, following a 3-0 loss to the New Jersey Devils, accused the players of allowing family matters to distract their focus on the ice.

Many players said Cassidy's remarks were in poor taste, and the coach apologized two days later.

Hanlon was the head coach of the Portland Pirates, Washington's AHL affiliate, for three seasons before joining the Caps last season.

Hanlon was 110-94-29-7 with the Pirates, leading the team to two playoff appearances. Like Cassidy, he also won an AHL coach of the year award, in 1999-00. Hanlon was also an assistant with Vancouver for eight seasons.