What you probably already know: The Bruins organization announced on Tuesday they fired head coach Jim Montgomery, moving associate coach Joe Sacco in as the interim coach. Unfortunately, this season the Bruins’ record has only reached a disappointing 8-9-3, which is vastly different than the performance they exhibited by this point last season. He will be replaced by Joe Sacco on an interim basis.
Montgomery, being an experienced NHL coach, previously worked with the Dallas Stars before moving on to breaking records with the Bruins organization. In addition to receiving the Jack Adams award while with the Bruins, he quickly achieved the most wins by a coach in the first season with a team, collecting an exciting 59 wins. Despite his accomplishments with the Bruins last season, they currently stand 4th in the Eastern Conference, and 18th overall. Something wasn’t working this year, and the franchise decided to cut its ties with Montgomery and begin the search for his successor.
So what does that mean?
Replacing an NHL coach a quarter of the way into the season is easier said than done. Coaches were formerly hired or replaced prior to pre-season and already have their eyes set on the silver trophy coming up at the end of the season. Asking a coach to leave mid-season is not very promising, and bringing in a new coach could be detrimental to the current line-up. During the recent Montgomery era, many watched along as this season seemed to take an opposing direction than what played out last year.
Several different players have hit the ice as of late, varying from the initially chosen squad for the Bruins. Forwards such as Patrick Brown, Matt Poitras and Riley Tufte have been back and forth from waivers in Providence to the home ice at TD Garden. With the constant interchanging of the lineup, does it come as a surprise for the lack of success the team is seeing this year versus their record breaking year prior?
Captain Brad Marchand has commented that it can take a while for successful lines to develop. When previously speaking about forwards Elias Lindholm and David Pastrnak, Jim Montgomery stated, “…It just hasn’t materialized, so we’re changing it up.” Regrettably, the constant changing of lines fell flat, but was that what caused this run of back luck, or was the changing lines an effect of some other alterations which were made in an attempt to improve their record?
While we have seen a pleasantly surprising performance this season in newly acquired goalie Joonas Korpisalo, we have seen a small slip in veteran Jeremy Swayman’s goaltending records, and we lost his former counterpart Linus Ullmark. Could the new goalie changeout be partially to blame this season as well? It is evident from several different angles, the Bruins have some work ahead of them to remain a contender for the playoffs.
An anonymous source close to the Bruins told me that former Detroit Red Wings Coach Joel Quenneville has to be a strong contender. Quenneville was recently reinstated into the NHL in July of this year following an investigation that occurred when he was the coach of the Panthers in 2021. According to The Hockey News as reported on Yahoo! Sports, he is, “…the second-winningest coach in league history with 969 victories….and is looking for work.” Certainly, a championship-hungry coach has what it takes to lead this team back into the playoffs where they belong, and where, with this team's talent, they should go. Whomever they select, Spoked-B Nation remains eagerly invested.