Bruins players shoulder blame for 'avoidable' Montgomery firing

BRIGHTON, Mass. -- The firing of Jim Montgomery as coach of the Boston Bruins is on the players who "didn't do our jobs," captain Brad Marchand said Wednesday.

"Very disappointing day, and also very frustrating is this [is] a reflection of our play," Marchand said. "And it was avoidable. That's the tough part about this is that if we had done our job in here, he would still be around, so [we] feel terrible as a group, individually that we let a really good coach and a really good person down and the effect it has not just on him, but on his family. It's a crappy day."

Montgomery, who was 120-41-23 as Bruins coach, was fired Tuesday, one day after a 5-1 home loss to the Columbus Blue Jackets. It dropped their record to 8-9-3.

"The obvious reaction from me is disappointment in the decision I had to make yesterday," general manager Don Sweeney said. "It came from a decision of our team just not performing to the level of expectations that we have grown to appreciate as a fan of the sporting community here.

"For me, I just had to change course."

The Bruins opened their season by going 4-6-1 in October but started November with two straight shutout wins.

However, they followed that up by going 2-3-2, including three straight losses (0-2-1) before Montgomery was fired.

Entering Wednesday, Boston ranks 31st in goals per game (2.40), 27th in goals against per game (3.45), last in the NHL on the power play (11.7 percent) and 25th on the penalty kill (75.6 percent).

"You might think it's a smaller sample size. I just didn't like the direction," Sweeney said. "We had a small little bump in terms of trying to play the right way in Philadelphia (3-0 win on Nov. 2) and going to Seattle (2-0 win on Nov. 3), but we couldn't maintain. … That's just the parts of the things that bother me as a general manager where our team can't stay as close as they can, hanging through adversity."

Sweeney said he felt the Bruins were "flat" throughout training camp and questioned whether certain players coming off career seasons eased up during the offseason.

Other than forward David Pastrnak, who has 17 points (eight goals, nine assists), and Marchand, who has 13 points (five goals, eight assists), no other Bruins player has double-digit points through 20 games.

Of the forwards who hit NHL career highs last season -- Charlie Coyle (60 points), Pavel Zacha (59), Trent Frederic (40) and Morgan Geekie (39), Zacha is the leader with seven points.

Pastrnak, who has had at least 110 points each of the past two seasons, is on pace for 70 this season.

"We just didn't do our jobs and we haven't played to the standard that we need to," Marchand said. "The standard that we've come to expect, that the management expects, that the fans expect and deserve.

"When you don't play to the expectations and to your level that we are capable of doing, it's not that the expectations are out of reach, it's just that we haven't played to our abilities. Things like this happen unfortunately and people have to take the fall, and that's what happened."

Goalie Jeremy Swayman is 5-7-2 with a 3.47 goals-against average and .884 save percentage. As a restricted free agent, he missed all of training camp before signing an eight-year, $66 million contract ($8.25 million average annual value) on Oct. 6. This after the Bruins traded goalie Linus Ullmark to the Ottawa Senators on June 24.

Montgomery was hired as Bruins coach July 1, 2022, and led them to the best single-season record in League history (65-12-5) that season. Boston had 135 points and an .823 points percentage, also NHL bests. Montgomery won the Jack Adams Award that season as the League's coach of the year. But the Bruins lost in the first round of the Stanley Cup Playoffs to the Florida Panthers in seven games after taking a 3-1 lead.

Last season, the Bruins lost in the Eastern Conference Second Round in five games to the Panthers, who went on to win the Stanley Cup.

Montgomery, who also coached the Dallas Stars for 114 games from 2018-20, was in the final year of his contract with the Bruins.

Sweeney said the Bruins had talked to Montgomery about a new contract but that they "couldn't find a deal based on what we offered."

Montgomery's interim replacement, Joe Sacco, is back as an NHL head coach for the first time in 11 years.

The 55-year-old, who had been an assistant with Boston since 2014, was coach of the Colorado Avalanche from 2009-13 before joining the Bruins staff.

"I'm excited for the opportunity, I'm not going to lie. It's a great opportunity," Sacco said. "This is an Original Six franchise. To be back at getting another crack as the head coach, it was always important to me, and sometimes it's not the way you want to get it. But like I said, this is an opportunity that I've been waiting for. It's a bittersweet day."

For Sacco, who will make his debut Thursday when Boston hosts the Utah Hockey Club (7 p.m. ET; Utah16, NESN, SNO, TVAS), the first order of business is getting the best out of the top players underperforming across the board.

"It's being harder to play against," Sacco said. "I want us to make sure, I want teams to know again that it's going to be hard to score goals against us. Our offense will come, there's enough players in there that are going to score goals, and I think the focus has been too much on that. Let's focus on keeping the puck out of our net, being hard to play against, and I'm confident that this group will score goals."