Bangor Daily News
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University of Maine Sports Hall of Famer and former hockey All-American Jim Montgomery epitomizes resiliency.
After being fired in November 2024 as the head coach of the National Hockey League’s Boston Bruins due to an 8-9-3 start, it took just five days for Montgomery to be named the head coach of the St. Louis Blues.
And while the Bruins continued to flounder and wound up missing the Stanley Cup playoffs after trading several key veterans around the trade deadline, Montgomery took over a 9-12-1 Blues team and went 35-18-7 with them to earn a playoff berth.
That included a franchise-record 12-game winning streak and a home winning streak of 12 games which is also a franchise record in the 57-year existence of the Blues.
They went 19-4-3 in their last 26 games to earn the second wild card spot in the Western Conference.
In an interview with the Bangor Daily News, Montgomery attributed his bounceback to the influence of late former UMaine head coach Shawn Walsh and his former assistant coach, Grant Standbrook.
“This is where they have impacted me so much. In Shawn Walsh’s great words, it’s not how hard you fall, it’s how quickly you get up,” said the 55-year-old Montgomery. His Blues will take on Winnipeg, the best team in the league during the regular season, in the first round of their best-of-seven playoff series beginning this weekend in Winnipeg.
“I’ve used it a lot of times with my kids and the teams I’ve been fortunate enough to coach. That has stayed with me forever and will always stay with me,” he said about that advice on Wednesday.
Montgomery also called upon his experience in Dallas, when he was fired as the Stars’ head coach in his second season behind the bench due to alcohol issues.
He checked himself into an inpatient rehabilitation program and got sober before landing an assistant coaching job with the Blues for the 2020-21 and 2021-22 seasons.
“This was nothing compared to that and I draw strength from that all the time,” said Montgomery. “Going back to Shawn Walsh’s words, I fell and I got right back up because I had gotten back up from much worse.”
Montgomery captained UMaine to its first NCAA championship in 1992-93 and scored three third-period goals in the championship game to rally UMaine to a 5-4 victory over Lake Superior State.
He said this season has been a “perfect microcosm of what life is like” with its ups and downs.
“There are peaks and valleys, professionally and personally, and that’s what this season resembles,” Montgomery said. “You start the season in Boston and the expectations are sky-high for everyone in the organization. Unfortunately, a lot of things went wrong and I’ll take my part in why it went wrong.”
The 8-9-3 start to the season for the Bruins did not match expectations.
“We didn’t play anywhere near [as well] as everyone expected and that’s usually when the coach is let go because it’s easier to let a coach go than everybody else,” he added. “That’s the world of the salary cap.”
Montgomery went home and contemplated his situation. He said he had wonderful support from his family and friends after he got fired.
“I was trying to figure out where I went wrong. What could I have done better for my own personal growth professionally,” said the Montreal native and UMaine’s all-time scoring leader (301 points). “And then the phone rings. I didn’t expect it to ring that quickly. I thought I had a couple of months, or at least a month. And then your mind goes ‘Are you ready for this?’”
It was the Blues on the line and they were looking for him to replace Drew Bannister, who had just been fired.
Montgomery was back behind an NHL bench five days after he had been fired.
He said it has been a “wonderful experience” in St. Louis.
His family is still back in Massachusetts but they will move to St. Louis when school ends. His wife, Emily, is from the Missouri city.
“It was an absolute home run for my family,” said Montgomery, who sought stability for his wife and four children and was glad to be returning to a place they had lived before and had friends and family in the area.
He said taking over a team in the middle of the season was “a new experience” for him. After a slow start to the season, the Blues began to put it together.
“We didn’t have the success I expected after the first two months but then it really came together,” said Montgomery. “It has been an incredible experience of personal and professional growth that I am incredibly grateful for. You don’t understand why things happen in life but, sometimes, you just realize God has a plan and you have to follow that path even if you never thought it would make sense.”
On Feb. 20, the Blues had 26 games left and needed a great finish to make the playoffs.
“If you said we would have to go at least 19-4-3 to make the playoffs, I would have said that’s impossible,” said Montgomery. “But that’s what makes sports the greatest reality show ever and they always will be. You can never underestimate what an individual can do.”
St. Louis clinched the playoff berth with a 6-1 win over Utah on Tuesday night.
Montgomery compared the energy in St. Louis to the excitement surrounding the UMaine Black Bears winning their first Hockey East tournament title since 2004 and appearing in the NCAA tournament.
“There is a fever like there was with the University of Maine’s team this season,” said Montgomery. “They galvanized the whole state.”
The Blues became just the 10th team in NHL history to make the playoffs when they were eight or more points out of a playoff spot with 26 or fewer games remaining.
They went 21-5-4 in their last 30 games and their 21 wins and 46 points were the most of any team during that stretch.
Montgomery said the Blues have a “monumental task” ahead of them against Winnipeg but noted “everyone has seen how wild the first round is” in the NHL playoffs.
“It’s much harder to win a game in the playoffs than during the regular season and we’re going against the best team in the league, but what we have is an opportunity and we’re grateful for it,” he said. “Now it’s up to us to seize the moment.”
Montgomery compiled a 120-41-23 record in Boston in his two-plus seasons — the best of any NHL coach during that span — and earned the Jack Adams Award for the league’s best coach in his first season when the Bruins set the NHL record for wins (65) and points (135) in a season.
He bears no ill will against the Bruins organization.
“I was grateful for the opportunity to be a Boston Bruin. To me, life is about people and they have some great people there. I know how hard they work and how much they care and I am empathetic about what they’re going through,” said Montgomery. “I care about their people and I’ve spoken with some of them whether it be a player, coach or someone in management.
“They are people I was very fortunate to work with,” said Montgomery.
He has a 214-102-40 record as an NHL head coach for a .655 winning percentage. He won two Clark Cup playoff championships in three years as the coach-general manager with Dubuque in the United States Hockey League, and also won an NCAA title with Denver.
