Ex-Bruins coach Jim Montgomery has already found a new job
It took less than a week for Jim Montgomery, fired by the Bruins on Tuesday afternoon, to find his next job in the NHL, with Montgomery hired as the head coach of the St. Louis Blues on Sunday morning.
Montgomery’s contract with St. Louis is a five-year pact, according to the team.
Montgomery’s new gig comes after two-plus seasons in Boston where he posted a 120-41-23 record, headlined by what was a record-breaking 2022-23 campaign that featured an NHL-record 65 wins and 135 points and a Jack Adams victory for Montgomery as the NHL’s top coach. Montgomery was in the final year of his current contract with the Bruins, and turned down multiple contract extension offers from the Bruins prior to his dismissal amid an 8-9-3 start, sources confirmed to 98.5 The Sports Hub.
In St. Louis, Montgomery has been given the chance to go “home,” as he’s lived there in the past (his wife is from the St. Louis area) and it was in St. Louis where Montgomery got his second chance in the NHL, as he served as an assistant on Craig Berube’s Blues staff before joining the B’s in 2022.
Montgomery also follows a similar path of previously fired Bruins coaches, with Montgomery fired by the Bruins and hired by a new team in just five days. In 2022, Bruce Cassidy was fired by the Bruins on June 6 and hired by the Golden Knights on June 14. And in 2017, Claude Julien was hired by the Canadiens on Feb. 14, just one week after the Bruins relieved him of his duties as the B’s head coach.
After wrapping up their season series head-to-head in less than a week earlier this month, the Bruins and Blues will not meet again until the 2025-26 season.
