Bruins players take blame for ‘avoidable’ Montgomery shooting

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 job and we didn’t play to the standard we need to,” Marchand said. “The standard that we have 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’re capable of, it’s not that the expectations are out of reach, it’s just that we haven’t played to our ability. Unfortunately, things like that happen , and people have to take the fall, and that’s what happened.’

Goaltender Jeremy Swayman is 5-7-2 with a 3.47 goals-against average and .884 save percentage. 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 goaltender Linus Ullmark to the Ottawa Senators on June 24.

Montgomery was hired as the Bruins’ coach on 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 a .823 save percentage, also an NHL best. 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, coached 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 to get another crack at being a head coach, that’s always been important to me, and sometimes that’s not how you want it to go. But like I said, it’s a opportunity I’ve been waiting for it’s a bittersweet day.”

For Sacco, who makes his debut Thursday when Boston hosts the Utah Hockey Club (7 p.m. ET; Utah16, NESN, SNO, TVAS), the first order of business is to get the best out of the best players who underperform over the entire line.

“It’s harder to play against,” Sacco said. “I want us to make sure, I want teams to know again that it will be difficult to score goals against us. Our attack will come, there are enough players in there who will score goals and I think , that the focus has been too much on that, let’s focus on keeping the puck out of our net, being tough to play against and I’m sure this group will score goals.”