The Boston Bruins made Jim Montgomery the first coaching casualty of the 2024-25 NHL season, firing him on Tuesday, less than two seasons after he was named coach of the year.
Associate coach Joe Sacco, a former Colorado Avalanche head coach, will take over behind the bench as the interim head coach.
The move came after a blowout loss to the Columbus Blue Jackets on Monday. Montgomery, who was in the final year of his contract, was let go with the team sitting at 8-9-3 and sporting poor underlying numbers.
‘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,’ Bruins GM Don Sweeney said in a statement. ‘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.’
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The Bruins have given up the first goal of the game 13 times, rank second from the bottom of the league in scoring and have the fifth-worst goals-against average. They have the league’s worst power play and rank 25th in penalty killing.
They’ve been the victim of several recent blowouts: 5-1 on Monday night, and 7-2 to the Dallas Stars and 8-2 to the Carolina Hurricanes in the last month.
They gave up two short-handed goals Monday against the Blue Jackets.
‘We’re in a place right now where we’ve got to dig ourselves out of a hole before it gets bigger,’ Montgomery told reporters after the loss.
Montgomery had won the Jack Adams Award as top coach in 2022-23 after the Bruins set NHL records with 65 wins and 135 points.
But the Florida Panthers shocked the Bruins by overcoming a 3-1 series deficit in the first round and winning Game 7 in Boston.
The Bruins then watched a 3-1 series lead evaporate last season before they beat the Toronto Maple Leafs in Game 7 at home. But they couldn’t get past the Panthers in the second round.
Boston beefed up this offseason, spending big money on Elias Lindholm and Nikita Zadorov. But Lindholm has only nine points in 20 games this season.
The team also split up their strong goaltending tandem by trading Linus Ullmark and re-signing Jeremy Swayman for eight years. But Swayman has a 3.47 goals-against average and .884 save percentage after he missed training camp before reaching a deal.