BOSTON -- Jim Montgomery led the Bruins to their historic 65-win campaign in his first season as Boston's head coach. Unfortunately, for the Black and Gold, the team was served a crushing Game 7 loss in the first round of the postseason at the hands of the Florida Panthers to end their bid for the Stanley Cup.
The bench boss would once again lead the Bruins to the postseason in his sophomore campaign with the franchise, only to once again fall to the Panthers in a heartbreaking Game 6 loss on home ice.
Despite the shortcomings in the postseason, president Cam Neely has complete faith that Montgomery is the right coach for the Bruins.
"His communication skills are right up there with some of the other coaches that have had success in this league, very collaborative with his staff," Neely said at the Buins' media day press conference to kick off the 2024-25 campaign. "I think he has no problem delegating, and I think they work extremely well together. So those things right there, tell me that we got a good coach. I think he's still learning along the way, as we all are in our positions, but I'm happy with the development of our staff and where we're headed right now."
The Bruins made several changes to their coaching staff in June, most notably bringing Jay Leach back into the organization as an assistant coach. The addition of Leach and the offseason acquisitions of Elias Lindholm and Nikita Zadorov has Neely "very excited" for the upcoming season.
"I'm excited about this year. I really am," Neely said. "I think (general manager) Don (Sweeney) and his staff did a fantastic job this offseason in identifying needs that we felt we were lacking to go for a deep run in the playoffs."
Neely added: "I'm excited about our coaching staff with the addition of Jay Leach. I think we've got a great staff, one of the best in the league. I think our record has shown that in the regular season. Now, it's just up to us to make it happen in the playoffs. I'm excited about this season. Excited about wrapping up the Centennial year with our game on Dec. 1 against Montreal. It'll be an exciting game for everybody, but more importantly, looking forward to this season and getting ourselves geared up for the playoffs."
Sweeney added that the Bruins are talking with Montgomery about a contract extension as he heads into the final year of his deal, but he refrained from discussing where the conversations stood.
"I think it was really important to make sure that Monty knows that when we went through the interview process, we hired a good coach," Sweeney explained. "We believe he's a good coach, and we'd like to extend him to be our coach. Our discussions will be ours and internal and where he feels his landing spot needs to be, but I think it was really important to make sure he knew what our intentions are."
