Jim Montgomery’s coaching record speaks for itself.
During his nine seasons as head coach in the USHL, NCAA and NHL ranks, Montgomery has led his teams to the postseason nine times.
Over the past decade, Montgomery’s stock has soared as a premier coaching talent in hockey circles — starting with a three-year stint with the Dubuque Fighting Saints (USHL) that resulted in two championships.
His reputation was further validated by a five-year stretch at the University of Denver in which the Pioneers went 125-57-26, earned two trips to the Frozen Four and took home an NCAA title in 2017.
Finally handed the keys to an NHL bench in 2018 with the Dallas Stars, Montgomery took a team that missed the postseason the previous two seasons to the second round of the 2019 Stanley Cup Playoffs — upsetting the top-seeded Predators before falling to the eventual Cup champion Blues in seven games.
In total, Montgomery posted a record of 60-43-10 with the Stars before he was fired by Dallas GM Jim Nill in December 2019 — with Montgomery later acknowledging the following month that he had a drinking problem and checked himself into rehab.
Montgomery, who added in his statement that the Stars made the right call in firing him, went on to serve as an assistant coach with St. Louis for the past two seasons — overhauling a special-teams unit that boasted a top-five ranked PK and power play in 2021-22 and playing a major role in the Blues’ transformation from a pack-it-in, grind-out club to a high-octane offensive juggernaut.
Fair to say, Montgomery has earned a second chance to lead an NHL team from the bench — and it looks as though he’s set to earn that opportunity with the Bruins.
Montgomery, who reportedly accepted the Bruins’ offer to serve as their next bench boss on Thursday, certainly has the credentials for the gig.
But the Bruins are in an interesting spot, and require a change in leadership that can cater to a roster still looking to orchestrate one more run with its established core — while also embracing an influx of young talent in hopes of staving off a long, painful rebuild.
And when it comes to assessing his fit with the 2022-23 Bruins, there’s a lot to like about how Mongomery’s systems, messaging and overall approach can help draw more production out of a roster that still feels as though it has a lot more to give.
So what kind of coach are the Bruins getting in Montgomery? Let’s run through a few defining characteristics of the B’s new leader behind the bench.
Puck possession and ‘hard mistakes’
Under Bruce Cassidy’s watch, the Bruins excelled as a defense-first club that stressed the need for quick breakouts and crisp transition play. But Boston’s knack for generating offense off the rush often led to inconsistent offensive outputs, especially come the postseason.
“I think we try to have clean breakouts, and rightfully so,” Cam Neely said back in May. “We try to be a rush team, but at times — especially a team like Carolina — they’re going to stand up. They’re not going to give you too many opportunities to have chances off the rush, so you’ve got to create chances elsewhere.”
If you watch any video of a Montgomery clinic where he preaches the principles of his coaching profile — “puck possession” is almost always referenced as the foundation of the teams he wants to lead.
After joining a Dallas team that — under Ken Hitchcock — had a propensity for simply dumping the puck in on every O-zone possession, Montgomery preached the need to limit the amount of time spent chasing in the O-zone.
"You're trying to find chemistry, a spark, you're trying to find something," Montgomery told the Dallas Morning News back in November 2018. "And there's some guys that have lost confidence and the only way to get your confidence back is to outwork. It's got to start with 1-on-1 battles, and then you get the puck possession and then your game builds from that.
"Any player, when they have the puck on their stick, feels better about their game. But you can't do it if you're not supporting pucks, if you're not stopping on pucks or you're throwing pucks away. We got a lot of players, some are doing that, some aren't right now. The ones that aren't are searching for answers and the answers got to come from within."
Rather than get caught into stubborn tendencies when it comes to either running into a wall of bodies on the blue line or simply flipping the puck into the O-zone at the first sight of trouble — Montgomery often wants his players to read and react to whatever the opposing defense is giving them, opening the door for a bit more offensive freedom for his skaters.
Of course, that adds to the potential for more miscues in the game of mistakes that is hockey. But as former Stars forward Devin Shore noted during Montgomery’s first training camp with Dallas in 2018, Montgomery is willing to accept those mistakes, so long as the effort is there to wipe out said blemish with some second-chance effort.
"We were given the green light to be aggressive as long as you are working hard back over the puck," Shore said. "That's the way the game is played now. Mistakes are going to happen, but make sure they are hard mistakes, that way you can recover. It's a really fun way to play. "Try your best to force turnovers with pace and intensity and as soon as you get it, turn it up and go right back at them quick. Speed is the name of the game now, and I think we have a fast group especially up front, so hopefully, that will work to our advantage."
The Bruins have the speed and defensive responsibilities drilled down that should make them effective in Montgomery’s system. But having a bench boss that’s also willing to roll with the punches and keep at it when a player commits a lapse with the puck should also go a long way toward keeping the confidence up across the depth chart.
Positive messaging
Montgomery’s willingness to let players take some chances without the fear of being put in the doghouse stands as one of the primary reasons why he’s cultivated a positive reputation around league circles for being a players’ coach that is able to get an entire dressing room to buy into his messaging.
If the 2022-23 Bruins are going to make any noise, it’s going to fall on the shoulders of the B’s big guns like Patrice Bergeron, David Pastrnak, Brad Marchand and Charlie McAvoy. No surprises there. But Boston desperately needs either hot-and-cold lineup regulars (Jake DeBrusk) or younger skaters like Jack Studnicka, Trent Frederic, Oskar Steen and potentially even Fabian Lysell to pull on the rope and supplement this core with consistent production.
With Cassidy looking to maximize the “win-now” window with the Bruins, his blunt and demanding delivery — especially directed toward younger players — had the potential to wear on players.
The Bruins might still have high aspirations for this upcoming season, but Montgomery's willingness to encourage risk-taking and give younger players a bit of a longer leash might allow skaters like DeBrusk to settle more into their roles — and give fresh talent the room they need to learn, fail and hopefully thrive at hockey's highest level.
Montgomery obviously put forth a strong track record of developing young hockey talent at Dubuque (Johnny Gaudreau, Mike Matheson) and Denver (Danton Heinen, Will Butcher, Dylan Gambrell, Troy Terry, Logan O’Connor).
But at Dallas, he was also at the helm of a team that began to incorporate young talent like Miro Heiskanen, Roope Hintz and Denis Gurianov. And with St. Louis — where he primarily worked with forwards and St. Louis’ special-teams groupings — Montgomery had a great relationship with a pair of younger skaters in Jordan Kyrou and Robert Thomas, both of who developed into lethal, top-six forwards over the past two years.
That willingness to work with younger players and draw more offensive creativity out of them paid instant dividends for a St. Louis team that averaged 3.77 goals per game last season (third in the NHL) and buried 199 tallies at 5v5 play — good for fourth in the league.
Now, granted, it’s quite the stretch to say that B's prospects who have earned looks before like Studnicka or Trent Frederic can follow a similar trajectory as high-ceiling youngsters like Thomas and Kyrou.
But at this juncture, the Bruins remain committed to seeing what this current crop of young talent can offer this team under a new coach. And the arrival of blue-chip prospects like Lysell and Mason Lohrei in the next year or so should give Montgomery another pair of intriguing projects to work with.
Of course, while Montgomery offers a bit of a different dynamic from Cassidy, that’s not to say that Mongomery is going to let the players run the show. Montgomery encourages an open line of communication between players and coaches and always seeks input, but he’s more than willing to take his team to task for sloppy performances and lackluster effort in games and practices, as The Athletic’s Sean Shapiro noted back in Dec. 2018.
Keeping the team accountable as far as effort is concerned while also not being so quick to give the hook to younger players? Seems to be exactly what this type of Bruins roster needs.
A sterling track record on special teams
Strong special-teams play has often been a defining characteristic of the Bruins over the last few seasons — be it a power play capable of covering up some of Boston’s flaws at even-strength action or a stout PK that can stem momentum with a few hard-nosed minutes of shorthanded TOI.
But things did begin to go stale for the B’s in 2021-22, especially for a power play that started to become too predictable or fell into the same stubborn mistakes that made things easy for the opposition to counter.
But the B’s should benefit from having a new set of eyes overlooking their special-teams groupings in Montgomery, who worked wonders for St. Louis during his two seasons on Craig Berube’s staff.
His impact was evident on the Blues’ PK, which went from 25th in the league in 2020-21 (77.8%) to fifth in the NHL this past year (84.1%). Add in a power play that was second to only Toronto with a 27.0% success rate last season, and Montgomery should be able to get more out of a B’s personnel grouping that needs a shot in the arm.
Of course, Montgomery can’t do all of this on his own. He’s earned rave reviews for his ability to develop young talent, get buy-ins from veterans and install both defensive (Dallas) and offensive (St. Louis) identities to whatever roster he’s handed.
But said roster is still a work in progress, even if Bergeron is back in the fold.
Montgomery might be the right kind of coach for a Bruins team that is trying to both squeeze more juice out of this aging core and duck and weave away from a long rebuild by adding young talent into the mix.
But Don Sweeney and the B’s front office can’t end their offseason with just a strong coaching hire and the return of their 37-year-old 1C.
Montgomery might be the right kind of coach for this team right now, but this needs to be just the first step this offseason. Because if Boston really wants to maximize the talents of this roster and its new head coach, it can’t all just fall on Montgomery drawing untapped potential out of the same supporting cast.