It was a season that contained the highest of highs and the lowest of lows.
In his first year as the Boston Bruins head coach, University of Maine Sports Hall of Famer Jim Montgomery guided the Bruins to a record-setting regular season campaign that included the most points (135) and most wins (65) in National Hockey League history.
But the Bruins were stunned in the first round of the Stanley Cup playoffs, ultimately losing to the Florida Panthers in Game 7 with a 4-3 overtime loss at TD Garden in Boston.
“When you look at the whole year, it was a positive year,” Montgomery said on Tuesday. “Not only did we play the right way, but we made it look easy and that’s not easy to do at the NHL level because it is such a close league and the margin of victory is so small.”
Montgomery, who earned the Jack Adams Award as the NHL’s Coach of the Year last season, took responsibility for the playoff loss and has spent a lot of time dwelling on it. Now, he’s looking ahead to the Bruins’ next season, which will have a different look.
“I did not get our players to the level I believe our team could play at in the most important time,” Montgomery said. “In my coaching career, it’s the first time I felt my team did not play its best hockey at the end of the year.”
Since then, the 54-year-old has done a lot of self-reflection on where he went wrong and what he could have done differently. Ultimately, he learned how to deal with his disappointment.
“It’s not a comfortable thing when you look into the mirror and feel like you didn’t get your team to play its best hockey when it mattered the most,” said UMaine’s all-time leading career scorer and two-time All-American.
Now, Montgomery is focused on what the Bruins have to do to make the playoffs in 2024.
He has been watching all the Stanley Cup playoff games, not just the Bruins’, to see “what the difference is between how goals were scored in the playoffs versus the regular season.” He and members of his coaching staff are also exploring trends in the league and studying body language to help put players in the best position to succeed.
Montgomery feels the style of play he employs is attractive to players because it encourages them to make plays that will help them possess the puck.
“And if we lose the puck, we want to get it back within five seconds, so you also have to be able to check,” he added.
In looking at how he can improve this season to help the team and players evolve, he must reckon with the likely loss of the team’s top two centers. Long-time captain Patrice Bergeron announced his retirement in July and David Krejci is likely to retire as well.
Wingers Taylor Hall and Nick Foligno were traded to Chicago for defensemen Alec Regula and Ian Mitchell. Tyler Bertuzzi, the team’s co-leading scorer in the playoffs, signed a one-year deal with the Toronto Maple Leafs, and defenseman Dmitry Orlov signed with the Carolina Hurricanes.
The Bruins have added some seasoned veterans in left wingers James van Riemsdyk (940 career games) and former Bruin Milan Lucic (1,173 games), along with defenseman Kevin Shattenkirk (891).
And former UMaine All-American goalie Jeremy Swayman received a one-year, $3.475 contract through arbitration.
Swayman and Vezina Trophy winner Linus Ullmark shared the Jennings Trophy for fewest goals allowed.
“We knew there was going to be significant changeover and that’s what’s happened,” said Montgomery, a former Dallas Stars head coach who guided the University of Denver to the NCAA championship in 2017 and the Dubuque Fighting Saints to two United States Hockey League titles in 2011 and 2013.
“This year, there is no way the regular season is going to be as good as last year because nobody had done that before,” said Montgomery, who is excited about the team general manager Don Sweeney and the Bruins’ scouting staff has put together. “But it is going to be good for us because we will grow a lot because of [our playoff loss]. There is going to be some hard adversity, which is going to help us mature.”
The Montreal native said hockey teams are built from the goal out and he is fortunate to have two “elite” goalies in Ullmark and Swayman.
He added that the Bruins’ two “stud” defensemen Charlie McAvoy and Hampus Lindholm and the team’s deep defense corps is a great place to start a team.
“We’re well ahead of a lot of teams in those two areas,” Montgomery said.
The Bruins also return their top two scorers in David Pastrnak (82 games, 61 goals-52 assists-113 points) and Brad Marchand (73, 21-46-67), and Montgomery is confident centers Pavel Zacha (82, 21-36-57) and Charlie Coyle (82, 16-29-45) can fill the void left by the departures of Bergeron and possibly Krejci.
He said despite losing a legendary captain like Bergeron, the Bruins have great leaders to take over, like assistant captains Marchand, Pastrnak and McAvoy.
Montgomery, who captained UMaine to its first NCAA title in 1992-93, was a member of the search committee that selected Ben Barr to replace the late Red Gendron and he likes the program’s growth under Barr.
UMaine won eight more games last season than in Barr’s first season.
Montgomery attended the game when UMaine rallied from a 4-0 deficit to tie Boston University 5-5 before eventually losing 9-6.
“I can tell when teams compete and believe in each other and play hard for each other. That tells me the program is headed in the right direction and that the University of Maine’s Black Bears will be a force in the very near future,” Montgomery said.
