The Boston Bruins have made the first coaching change of the 2024-25 NHL season, firing head coach Jim Montgomery on Tuesday.
The move comes after a 5-1 home-ice loss to the Columbus Blue Jackets on Monday night. The Bruins are 0-2-1 in their last three games, have been outscored 15-5 in that spanned, and have now dropped to 8-9-3 in their first 20 games. With 19 points, Boston sits in the second wild-card spot in the Eastern Conference heading into Tuesday’s games.
Montgomery, 55, joined the Bruins prior to the 2022-23 season. In his first year, he won the Jack Adams Award as the coach of the year after guiding the team to the NHL history — 65-12-5 for 135 points.
Last season, the Bruins settled for second place in the Atlantic Division, with 109 points. But playoff success was elusive. Boston was eliminated by the Florida Panthers in both years — in overtime of Game 7 of the first round in 2023, then in six games in 2024.
During the 2024 off-season, Boston general manager Don Sweeney spent big in free agency. He signed center Elias Lindholm to a seven-year deal with a salary-cap hit of $7.75 million and defenseman Nikita Zadorov to a four-year pact at a cap hit of $5 million.
But after Montgomery deployed one of the strongest goalie tandems in the league in his first two seasons, Sweeney traded Linus Ullmark to the Ottawa Senators in June, then had trouble bringing his new No. 1, Jeremy Swayman,
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