Bruce Cassidy doesn't want to go anywhere. 

Speaking to the media following his team's elimination from the Stanley Cup playoffs by the hands of the Ottawa Senators on Sunday, the Boston Bruins interim head coach said he "absolutely" wants to return as the bench boss for the 2017-18 campaign. 

However, Cassidy is not taking his return as a guarantee and said he will let the front office do their due diligence in the coming days.

“Well, now we’re making a lot of assumptions,” he said Sunday. “That will be determined going forward by management. It’s a tough question to answer.”

The 51-year-old took over for Claude Julien in early February after the team fired the veteran coach. When Cassidy was named coach, Boston held a disappointing 26-23-6 record and were in danger of missing the playoffs for a third consecutive season. Cassidy turned things around and coached the Bruins to a 18-8-1 record the rest of the way, good enough for a first-round date with the Ottawa Senators.  

Boston fell to Ottawa in six games.

This was Cassidy's first head coaching job at the NHL level since he was in charge of the Washington Capitals for parts of two seasons in the early 2000s.