Sam Navarro-Imagn Images
The Boston Bruins fired coach Jim Montgomery on Tuesday, the team announced.
Montgomery’s firing comes after the team’s 8-9-3 start to the season and Monday’s 5-1 loss to the Columbus Blue Jackets. Fans booed the team at the end of the game, Boston’s third-straight loss.
The team appointed Joe Sacco as its interim coach in hopes that his experience will bring the players and squad back to focusing on consistent performances, Bruins GM Don Sweeney said.
“Jim Montgomery is a very good NHL coach and an even better person,” Don Sweeney said in a news release. “He has made a positive impact throughout the Bruins organization, and I am both grateful and appreciative of the opportunity to work with him and learn from him.
“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…We will continue to work to make the necessary adjustments to meet the standard and performance our supportive fans expect.”
Sweeney and president Cam Neely did, however, take note of the Bruins’ performance in past years under Montgomery.
“Jim’s open and honest communication with players, staff and management, as well as the positive attitude that he brought to the rink every day, helped lead our franchise to several on-ice accolades, including a historic 65-win season in 2022-23,” Neely said.
Montgomery joined the Bruins in the 2022-23 season after Boston fired Bruce Cassidy. Cassidy won the Stanley Cup with the Vegas Golden Knights that season, but Montgomery received the Jack Adams Award as the NHL’s coach of the year. The Bruins set NHL all-time records for the most wins and points (135) in a season but lost in the first round of the playoffs to the Florida Panthers.
The Bruins also finished seventh in the NHL last season and eliminated the Toronto Maple Leafs in the first round before the eventual Cup-champion Panthers beat them in the second round.
This season, the Bruins have the second-fewest goals-for per game, with 2.40, and the fifth-worst goals-against average, with 3.45. Their power play is the worst in the NHL at an 11.7-percent success rate, and their penalty kill is eight-worst at a 75.6-percent kill rate. The Bruins sit fourth in the Atlantic Division with 19 points, but they’re fifth in the division going by points percentage (.475).
Sacco, meanwhile, is in his 11th season on the Bruins coaching staff since starting as an assistant coach in 2014. He was an associate coach when the Bruins promoted him Tuesday.
The 55-year-old Sacco has head coaching experience in the NHL – he was the Colorado Avalanche bench boss from 2009-10 to 2012-13. During that time, he amassed a 130-134-30 record and was a finalist for the Jack Adams Award in 2010, when the Avalanche had a 43-30-9 record.
Sacco has also been a Buffalo Sabres assistant coach in 2013-14 and head coach of Team USA at the 2013 World Championship.
The team plans to make Sacco and Sweeney available to media after its 11 a.m. ET practice on Wednesday.
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