What went wrong for Jim Montgomery and the Bruins?

On June 24, 2024, Don Sweeney diminished Jim Montgomery’s greatest position of strength. The Boston Bruins general manager and coach both knew it was coming.

Linus Ullmark had to be traded.

For two seasons, Ullmark and Jeremy Swayman made Montgomery’s job easy by cleaning up their teammates’ mistakes. But their time was over. The Bruins needed to rebuild their organizational future. They also had to apply the former Vezina Trophy winner’s average annual value of $5 million elsewhere.

What Montgomery didn’t see coming, however, was the outcome of trading Ullmark for Joonas Korpisalo, Mark Kastelic and a 2024 first-round pick.

Seven days later, Sweeney used some of Ullmark’s dough to sign Elias Lindholm and Nikita Zadorov. So far, they have flopped to a degree that the brain trust had not foreseen either.

And another thing Montgomery didn’t foresee: three months after Lindholm and Zadorov put pen to paper, Swayman had yet to do the same. By Oct. 6, the day Swayman agreed to his eight-year, $66 million contract, the Bruins had wrapped up training camp. As soon as Swayman signed his deal at Warrior Ice Arena, he rushed to Hanscom Field airport for the team’s flight to South Florida for the season opener two days later. Game 1 didn’t go well.

Lindholm has a five-on-five goal. Zadorov has an NHL-leading 13 minor penalties. Swayman has a .884 save percentage. And Montgomery is out.

All of these things, among others, are connected.

The Stars’ injuries leave the Bruins shorthanded

David Pastrnak was a master. On 26 May, Pastrnak and his Czech teammates beat Switzerland 2–0 in the final of the 2024 World Cup.

There was a problem.

Sometime during the tournament, the Bruins’ No. 1 right wing suffered an undisclosed injury. It was serious enough to park Pastrnak for several weeks during the off-season. He could not fulfill his usual training program.

He was not alone.

During the 2023-24 NHL playoffs, Brad Marchand played through a torn elbow tendon. It had to be fixed.

Marchand also underwent groin and hernia procedures over the summer. It wasn’t until mid-August that the 36-year-old resumed training.

As Montgomery settled into his office at the Bruins’ practice facility to prepare for training camp, he knew his No. 1 right wing and captain wouldn’t be 100 percent upon arrival. Pastrnak and Marchand were not at their usual fitness levels. They had to play into NHL form.

Their interrupted summer workouts showed in their play. In the first eight games, because he regularly chased the play, Pastrnak took seven minor penalties. On October 24 against the Dallas Stars, he took hooking and tripping penalties. The Stars scored on both power plays. Pastrnak took the blame for being undisciplined.

Marchand, meanwhile, went scoreless through the first eight games. His first five-on-five goal came in Game 16. It’s his only one.

Meanwhile, Pastrnak and Marchand have split time on the No. 1 power-play unit. The Bruins are at a team-worst 11.7 percent. On Monday, after the Bruins’ 5-1 loss to the Blue Jackets, Marchand acknowledged how much better the Bruins need to be on the power play.

Montgomery and assistant coach Chris Kelly, who is in charge of the power play, started the year emphasizing low plays and sharp angles. Their players did not react. Too often, the power play was stationary and predictable, looking for Pastrnak’s left-elbow one-timer.

In 2023-24, Pastrnak led the Bruins with 110 points. Marchand was No. 2 with a 67.

This season, Pastrnak is on pace for 70 points. Marchand should score 54. They are currently 1-2 in team scoring.

Lindholm is third. He has nine points. He is on his way to 37.

Two swings and misses

On Sunday, two days before his firing, Montgomery described Lindholm as a complementary center.

“Makes good in the D-zone,” Montgomery said. “He’s the right spot in the neutral zone. Offensively, you see him more at the net front or in hash marks than you do with the puck.”

Montgomery discussed Lindholm’s style of play. He may have been right in another way. Through 20 subdued games, Lindholm has been a complementary center to being a third-line focal point under ideal circumstances.

The problem is, Sweeney paid him to be #1.

Maybe Lindholm will come back at that level. But he has fallen since his high-water mark of 82 points in 2021-22 while centering Johnny Gaudreau and Matthew Tkachuk. So far, there have been no signs of a course correction.

This left Montgomery in a jam. Lindholm, who is expected to be Pastrnak’s setup man, was oil to the right wing’s water. Montgomery had no choice but to move Pavel Zacha, expected to be the No. 1 left wing, back to center.

Zadorov, meanwhile, started camp with Charlie McAvoy. It didn’t take long for Montgomery to identify it as a problematic pairing.

Zadorov is known as a defensive defender. But he likes to go. Not always at the right time.

The unpredictability affected McAvoy’s game. The No. 1 defenseman knew exactly what Matt Grzelcyk, his former partner, was going to do and when. This season, McAvoy has had to spend precious seconds processing how Zadorov would play a situation.

Montgomery determined that both defensemen were better off with Zadorov on the No. 3 pairing with Andrew Peeke. This left McAvoy to play with Mason Lohrei and Jordan Oesterle. Neither has optimized McAvoy to be a difference maker, which is what Montgomery desperately needed McAvoy to be.

That’s because Montgomery’s security blanket was ripped apart.

Goal setting is important

In his first two seasons, Montgomery didn’t lose any regular season sleep over his goaltending. He knew it would be different in 2024-25.

But he never dreamed that buying Swayman would be so difficult.

This was Sweeney’s department. After president Cam Neely and agent Lewis Gross had it, Sweeney eventually got the deal done, even though it was considered an overpayment. But the coach had to pick up the pieces of Swayman’s missed camp.

Korpisalo took the loss in the season opener. Swayman has yet to look like a No. 1 goaltender. On Monday, in what would be his final postgame press conference, Montgomery said he didn’t think missing an entire camp helped any player.

Tellingly, after Montgomery’s remarks, Swayman acknowledged how he lost the company of his teammates in camp. Swayman is likely feeling the pressure of letting his teammates down by not approaching his peak.

With his No. 1 unable to take goals off the scoreboard, Montgomery had to lean harder on his skaters. He bent Pastrnak. He had it out with Marchand.

Montgomery scratched Morgan Geekie five times. He supported Matt Poitras’ AHL assignment. He scratched Johnny Beecher once. He took Lohrei out of the lineup four times.

Sweeney hired Montgomery in part because of how supportive he was of his players, especially after Bruce Cassidy often took a firmer approach. For two seasons, Montgomery was sunflowers and rainbows in space. He had no reason to be any different.

But when things went sideways early on, he became Dark Monty. It didn’t work.

What comes next?

If Joe Sacco gets the team back on track, it will confirm what Sweeney has believed: The roster is healthy. If Sacco can’t turn night into day, it will expose Sweeney’s team-building approach as compromised.

It could be, for example, that Sweeney has built his team around three third-line centers in Lindholm, Coyle and Zacha. He couldn’t secure Swayman for a more team-friendly number. He didn’t sign or acquire a replacement for Jake DeBrusk, partly because he thought Fabian Lysell was ready for college work. Lysell, number 21 in 2021, has one goal in 12 AHL games.

No help is coming. The Bruins are feeling the pain of trading away four of their last seven first-round picks.

Beecher, their 2019 first-rounder, looks like an NHL fourth-liner. A director of amateur scouting, granted anonymity to discuss players outside his organization, brought up Zach Hamill (No. 8 pick in 2007, 20 NHL games) as a possible Poitras comparable. Dean Letourneau, their 2024 first-rounder, has two assists in eight games as a freshman out of Boston College.

All of this confirms one thing: This is now on McAvoy, Pastrnak and Swayman, the team’s three core players, to reach their levels. It’s also on Coyle, Geekie, Marchand, Zacha, Brandon Carlo and Trent Frederic to get in line or risk being traded. Sweeney, in that regard, may have to make roster moves in addition to replacing the coach.

The Bruins are no longer Montgomery’s problem.

(Top photo: Matthew J. Lee/Getty Images)