In the end, it didn’t matter what kind of gaudy regular season record Jim Montgomery amassed during his time with the Boston Bruins.
He was behind the B’s bench for the best regular season team in NHL history and put together a 120-41-23 overall won-loss record during two-plus years in Boston, but none of that mattered in the here and now. In a “What Have You Done For Me Lately?” league, the Bruins are a hot mess off to an 8-9-3 start to this season that has struggled offensively (31st in the NHL with 2.40 goals per game), defensively (27th in the NHL with 3.45 goals against per game), on both special teams units (32nd in PP with 11.7 percent success rate and 25th in the NHL in PK with a 75.6 percent rate) and in the area of goaltending while also being the most penalized team in the NHL this season.
Aside from all that the Bruins have been totally awesome this year.
Justin Brazeau, Cole Koepke, Mark Kastelic, Johnny Beecher and Hampus Lindholm are the only Bruins that are playing at or above their expected NHL level, and that leaves a lot of big names that have been subpar this year for a team that’s third worst in the NHL with a minus-21 goal differential. When a group of an NHL team’s best players play disinterested hockey for a long period of time, that is exactly what will get a head coach fired no matter how sparkling the overall won-loss record has been.
It was clear that the pressure was getting to Montgomery, at times, as when he publicly lashed out at Bruins captain Brad Marchand on the bench, or when he benched David Pastrnak for a third period at home a couple of weeks ago.
Jim Montgomery lighting into Brad Marchand on the Bruins bench after a turnover by the Bruins captain led to a short-loved Utah goal pic.twitter.com/EBjQeJr1gl
— Joe Haggerty (@HackswithHaggs) October 20, 2024
Once those extreme moves didn’t spark a sleepwalking hockey team, it was clear the nice guy approach employed by Montgomery probably wasn’t going to work anymore.
And so it was for the Black and Gold with Montgomery out, and with Medford native Joe Sacco installed as interim head coach amidst an 11-year run with the organization as an assistant coach for Claude Julien, Bruce Cassidy and Montgomery. Sacco was in charge of a Bruins penalty kill that had previously been tremendous until collapsing this season, and now he’ll be charged with bringing a team together that hasn’t looked cohesive, consistent or much like themselves pretty much all season.
“Our team’s inconsistency and performance in the first 20 games of the 2024-25 season has been concerning and below how the Bruins want to reward our fans,” said Don Sweeney. “I believe Joe Sacco has the coaching experience to bring the players and the team back to focusing on the consistent effort the NHL requires to have success. We will continue to work to make the necessary adjustments to meet the standard and performance our supportive fans expect.”
The surprising part in all of this, perhaps, is that the Bruins and Montgomery had discussed parameters on a contract extension this season, per a source with knowledge of the situation. So there had been genuine interest by the Bruins in retaining Montgomery if the team had continued to show some spark of hope, but the recent three-game losing streak punctuated by a 5-1 home loss to the lowly Columbus Blue Jackets was the final straw.
Much like the Edmonton Oilers last season after turfing Jay Woodcroft, the Bruins will be looking for a bounce from the coaching change that can light a fire under so many players who have underwhelmed in the early going.
“On behalf of the Boston Bruins, we thank Jim Montgomery for his accomplishments and impact on our organization. Jim’s open and honest communication with players, staff and management, as well as the positive attitude that he brought to the rink every day, helped lead our franchise to several on-ice accolades, including a historic 65-win season in 2022-23. We wish Jim and his family the best moving forward both personally and professionally,” said Cam Neely. “I’m supportive of Don’s decision to address our current play and performance. Joe Sacco has a wealth of experience and knowledge of our roster and can help lead our team in the right direction. He has a strong understanding of our standards and expectations, and I trust he will do all he can to accomplish our organization’s goals this season.”
It will be telling to see how the Bruins respond to all of this. Some believe that they are slower, older and thinner on their roster than they have been in year’s past, and that the constant losses of quality veterans over the last five years is finally making a dent. But a closer look at this hockey team showed a much more disinterested group in terms of backchecking, a lot more chaos in the defensive zone coverage and way too much undisciplined play when it came to taking penalties and straying away from specific roles and responsibilities.
Combine all of that with a team struggling to score goals and it’s a recipe for losing hockey that leaves the Bruins lucky, actually, to be in a wild-card playoff spot just a smidge ahead of the New York Islanders.
What’s going to be interesting is whether or not Sacco becomes the long-term head coach of this group, or if the Bruins begin a dance to try and attract a replacement like multiple Cup champ Joel Quenneville, or possibly a college coach like Jay Pandolfo or Nate Leeman that’s got ties to the Bruins organization. There should be no shortage of candidates for a prestigious job like an Original Six head coaching gig with the Boston Bruins if it opens up ahead of next hockey season.
None of that is to underrate Sacco, though, who has stepped in before when COVID knocked Bruce Cassidy away from the bench for a few games and has a head coach with the Colorado Avalanche prior to the current influx of talent there with Nathan MacKinnon, Cale Makar and others.
The bottom line is that the onus is now on the Bruins players to perform as there were 18 NHL scouts at TD Garden on Monday night to watch the B’s and Blue Jackets play on the ice. Firing the coach was the next logical move headed into this week, but trading players off the Bruins will be next if the consistent level of play doesn’t improve across the board.
It also feels like a good time to look back in retrospect about whether firing Cassidy for being too tough on the players was the right move. Cassidy is still in Vegas coaching the Golden Knights and has himself a Stanley Cup that his players in Boston were never able to accomplish under his watch. How would it look for Bruins management and players if Montgomery hops on with another NHL team and wins a Stanley Cup while the B’s have fired three straight Jack Adams-winning coaches over the last decade.
All eyes are now on David Pastrnak, Charlie McAvoy and Brad Marchand as the Bruins leaders and the rest of the group in the B’s dressing room to perform, or the next move could involve some of them amidst high expectations for the Black and Gold.
