Firing Jim Montgomery won’t fix what’s ailing the Bruins these days
Bruins head coach Jim Montgomery is running out of answers.
He may very well be running out of time, too. Through the first fifth of the season, the Bruins sit at 7-7-2 on the year. They’ve yet to win more than two games in a row at any point this season, and even that they’ve done just twice. And last Saturday’s setback, a 3-2 overtime loss to the Senators, was one of the most frustrating yet, with the Bruins held without a shot on goal for the entire third period.
Speaking for a mere 91 seconds after the loss, Montgomery had little insight when it came to fixing his team’s up-and-down, unpredictable start that has made the TD Garden elevators feel like a bullet train.
“That’s up for you guys to figure that out and come up with a reason,” Montgomery told the media when asked why the messaging isn’t getting through. “We just weren’t good enough. You guys can write what you guys think is the malaise on the team and what’s going on. We’re just not playing good enough.”
As far as quotes go, that felt more Dead Man Walking And He Knows It than anything else previously said in what everybody knows and has acknowledged is a ‘lame duck’ season for Montgomery.
But to this point, there’s no reason to think that firing Montgomery, which has become a near-daily talking point online and after every loss, is going to be the cure for this team.
When the Bruins saw the Panthers end their postseason for a second straight spring, the Bruins took to the podium a few days later and outlined their offseason desires: They were going to be aggressive, and they were going to focus on getting faster and adding secondary scoring threats because they knew David Pastrnak was going to get targeted (and perhaps ultimately worn down) with hard, physical matchups thrown at him every game. Bruins general manager Don Sweeney even cited how teams targeted Ray Bourque when discussing the bullseye that’s been on No. 88 in recent runs.
But sometime between that May 22 press conference and July 1, those plans were absolutely altered.
The Bruins were aggressive (both in terms of their signings and the types of players they signed) and got bigger, sure, but they also got noticeably slower. Faster, they were not. And they did not invest in true secondary scoring per se, instead signing Nikita Zadorov to a $30 million deal and putting more offensive expectations on his new fellow left-side D-men (Hampus Lindholm and Mason Lohrei). In fact, the Bruins went full abandon ship on the secondary scoring front and let every secondary scorer they had — Jake DeBrusk, Danton Heinen, and James van Riemsdyk — depart as free agents. That was, uh, the very opposite of adding secondary scoring to the equation.
For as big as the Bruins now were, and for as relentless a forecheck as their projected roster could’ve put forth, there were obvious questions as to the upcoming goal production.
And through 16 games, it’s played out exactly as your worst fears thought it could.
Entering the week, the Bruins rank 26th in goals for per game (2.50), 23rd in shots per game (27.4), their 9.11 shooting percentage is the seventh-worst figure in the league, and their 12.5 power-play percentage is the second-worst in the NHL. At five-on-five, Boston’s 2.35 expected goals per 60 is the 8th-worst rate, their 24.97 scoring chances per 60 is the 10th-fewest per 60 rate, and only five teams are averaging fewer high-danger scoring chances per 60 at five-on-five this season than the Bruins (9.28). And to make matters worse, the Bruins aren’t even burying high-danger chances they do generate, with their 14.47 high-danger shooting percentage at five-on-five currently ranking 26th out of 32.
It’s been an almost impossibly punchless offensive attack.
Playing the odds and the math here, that’ll change at some point. So long as they, y’know, shoot the puck, they’ll go on a goal-scoring heater and get their numbers closer to the middle of the pack. You’re actually already starting to see that with some of their other once-horrific metrics. But the actual biggest problem within that is that the Bruins have essentially built a roster that’s truly not allowed to go through extended cold spells and heavy dips from certain players, all of whom have been asked to play key roles.
When the Bruins built their current team and ignored (or at the very least whistled by the danger) certain aspects of their building process, they seemingly operated with the belief that multiple players who were coming off undeniable career years would just permanently … be … those players moving forward.
That has not been the case out of the gate.
After shooting almost 15 percent for two straight seasons, Trent Frederic has regressed to the tune of a 4.6 shooting percentage through his first 16 games this season. That’s the 21st-worst shooting percentage among a group of 233 forwards with at least 20 shots this season. Charlie Coyle, who had a career-high 25 goals and 60 points a year ago, is currently paced for what would be a 10-goal and 15-point season. Morgan Geekie, who will be thrown to the left side (he’s a right shot) of Boston’s top line on Tuesday after sitting as a healthy scratch for the last three games, has zero goals and just two assists through 11 games after posting a career-high 17 goals and 39 points for the Bruins a year ago. Even Pavel Zacha, who for two years looked like Sweeney’s greatest heist yet after a one-for-one swap with Erik Haula sent Jersey’s way, has struggled out of the gate, with one goal and two assists in his first 14 games before ‘exploding’ with two goals and an assist in his last two games.
It’s honestly scary to think what this team would look like without the stellar contributions of fourth liners Cole Koepke (fourth-most points on the Bruins, with eight) and Mark Kastelic (fifth-most, with seven).
Looking at this Bruins forward grouping on any given night, you will almost certainly see at least one player playing above their true ceiling for a Stanley Cup contender on just about every line. In a league with a hard cap, you’re always going to ask for more from at least one area of your lineup.
But there’s only so much a coach can do to squeeze production out of what’s somehow looked like a thinner-than-a-year-ago lineup, and it already feels like Montgomery has shaken the proverbial Magic 8 (Spoked) Ball 25 times over. Even when that 8 Ball has told him to shove the captain of the team or bench the team’s best pure offensive talent, he’s done it with the hopes of sparking something.
Until Montgomery himself puts skates on and signs a deal, there’s only so much direction that can be given and tinkering that can be done before you have to acknowledge the painful and consistent lack of execution from those currently wearing skates and playing with deals.
At the same time, it’s also entirely possible that Montgomery’s time behind the B’s bench has hit its wall. It doesn’t mean he’s a bad coach. It’s just that NHL coaches don’t last like they used to. Montgomery is somehow the 10th-longest tenured current head coach in the league right now, and his hiring date is 17 days behind making him the fifth-longest tenured. And if you’re of the belief that Montgomery is not the true difference between winning and losing a Stanley Cup, I admittedly don’t have much to dispel that notion, especially with a playoff format that puts Paul Maurice, Jon Cooper, and now Craig Berube (even with that scarlet Maple Leaf letter in front of him) in his way every spring.
The Bruins’ silence on this topic, meanwhile, has felt increasingly deafening. Like it’s just hanging over every single day of this team’s 2024-25 season. To the point where you have to wonder if it’s time that someone in the front office gives him a public vote of confidence or simply makes the call to move on.
If and when that day comes, which is beginning to feel like an inevitability more than anything else, the B’s front office will have the authority to make that call and make their third coaching change since 2017. Ownership has backed the Cam Neely and Don Sweeney management team again and again, and Bruins CEO Charlie Jacobs has at times appeared downright bothered by the mere possibility that this management team should not be considered locks.
And moving on from Montgomery may be their ‘easiest’ call yet. Not only has it proven to be a more common ‘fix’ across the league as it’s ultimately way easier than making a major in-season trade, but Montgomery is in the last year of his current contract. Montgomery also doesn’t come with the legacy of a Stanley Cup win like Claude Julien did (Julien survived about five near-firings during his almost decade in Boston), nor does Montgomery seem to have the same level of fan support of the incredibly blunt and outspoken (an honorary Bostonian) Bruce Cassidy, who also got the Bruins to hockey’s biggest stage.
The only ‘hard’ part for the Bruins’ front office to make this call may be the fact that Montgomery can (and will) serve as a potential shield for the shortcomings of management’s roster construction for as long as he’s in town without an extension and the team not clicking the way they envisioned it back in July. As long as he’s here and as long as the team is scuffling, he remains someone to point at.
But as Montgomery continues to scour the cabinets and throw anything he can find into the pot to try and find the cure to what’s ailing the Bruins, it’s becoming harder and harder to say with full confidence that his cabinet is as stocked as it truly needs to be for his team to get well soon.
