Montgomery is all about accountability
Jim Montgomery knows what it is to win, and win big. In 2017, he coached the University of Denver to a national championship, completing a journey that reached the Frozen Four just a year before.
He also knows what it is to lose, and lose big. In 2019, barely into his second season coaching the Dallas Stars, Montgomery was fired for unprofessional behavior he would later reveal to be related to alcoholism.
Montgomery knows what it is to navigate life’s highs and lows, to commit himself to rehab and get sober, to regain the trust of those around him and be rewarded with a return to the NHL.
And here with the Bruins, in his second chance as an NHL head coach, he has shown he knows how to make the most of it — with statistically staggering proof.
Though a Wednesday night loss to the Hurricanes may not have been in the script for how he wanted his Bruins to close out their five-game homestand, the numbers the coach has put up in his season-plus in Boston remain wildly impressive.
Now the challenge is to make them add up to the highest of NHL highs: the Stanley Cup.
But look at what he’s done in a season and a half: 65 wins last season, best in the NHL, with league highs in points (135, 13 clear of the field), points percentage (.823, 13.4 percent better than second-place Carolina), and goal differential (a staggering plus-128).
The Bruins are putting up similar numbers this season, in the top four in those same four categories. And really, that might reflect even better on a coach who started the season without Patrice Bergeron and David Krejci, both retired, as well as playing in the shadow of last season’s shocking first-round playoff loss.
Here he is again, back around the top of the NHL standings, barely missing a beat despite a season narrative that opened amid so many questions, intent to use lessons from games like Wednesday’s 3-2 setback to understand what it will take to reverse last year’s playoff heartbreak.
After two relatively lackluster periods in which two power-play goals put Carolina up, 2-0, the Bruins woke up in the third, tying the game on two Brad Marchand scores. But a defensive mistake in the final minutes — no one getting back after a David Pastrnak shot at the Carolina end — and an ensuing breakaway game-winner by the visitors reminded them there is always work to be done.
“The game management bothers me at the end,” Montgomery said. “You’ve got to know that you’ve done a great job, you’ve tied it up 2-2, that we don’t need to force anything, you know?
“Points are valuable, and that’s a good lesson for us moving on to the playoffs. Yeah, the momentum was on our side — it’s 2-2, the crowd’s into it, the Garden is buzzing — but we can’t lose our position and give up a breakaway.”
That’s exactly what Charlie Coyle heard:
“Those are things we as a team have to learn from: time of the game, game situations. You got to grow from that, and that’s what we’re going to do.
“We’ve done it all year, whatever the situation is. Little things from the game, giving up a breakaway, learning those situational things, it’s stuff we can clear up and get better. Sometimes you’ve got to go through it to get better.”
For Montgomery, his conclusion was this: “I’m not teaching well enough, that’s what I learned tonight.”
Such is the essence of the man who doesn’t simply coach his players to show accountability, but tries to live by that example too. It’s a leadership style rooted in the opportunity he’s gotten here with the Bruins, cherishing his own second chance while encouraging players to revel in their halcyon days.
Be it a first NHL chance for a player such as the teenage Matt Poitras, or the ascending days of a constantly improving Coyle, or the prime-of-their-career days for the sublime Pastrnak or impenetrable Charlie McAvoy, or even the inching-evercloser-to-the-finish-line era for the veteran (and now) captain Marchand, the coach has forged unique connections to each.
“I think the great thing about our team is just everyone wants to take accountability and that’s just him trying to take accountability for the game and the outcome,” Marchand said, “but it’s a teamwide thing.
“It’s just us maturing as a team, understanding the situation that we’re in every single shift, understanding the importance of making simple plays or simple reads.”
To understand Montgomery is to know how much his message is shaped by those personal and career missteps. And how in sharing them so openly, as he did with candor while accepting last season’s Coach of the Year award, he is making it stick.
In simple terms: Don’t take any of it for granted.
“Three and a half years ago, the Dallas Stars terminated my contract because of my struggles with alcohol, and I had to change my actions and behaviors,” Montgomery said barely a minute into last season’s Jack Adams Award acceptance speech. “And that’s when my new team — the most important team in my life — has really, is what leads to the success that I live daily right now.”
With thank yous to his lifelong friends, to his 91-year-old mom (who recently died), to his wife and his children, Montgomery revealed so much about what makes him tick. Relying on those around you makes everything better — the joys, the sorrows and everything in between.