Don Sweeney, Cam Neely Explain What Made Jim Montgomery Best Fit For Bruins

The Boston Bruins introduced new head coach Jim Montgomery in a news conference Monday.

The former St. Louis Blues assistant coach was able to speak on how the team has impressed him, and general manager Don Sweeney and president Cam Neely spoke on the process that went into hiring Montgomery. Sweeney explained what made Montgomery the man to lead the Bruins.

“We went through a fairly wide exhaustive interview process,” Sweeney told reporters, as seen on NESN’s coverage. “We spent a number of days with our pro staff breaking down the areas that they see both around the league and internally. We put together a pretty wide ranging list of candidates and put together a questionnaire that each candidate — I’m very appreciative of all the time each and every one of them did spend, both from the questionnaire standpoint, but also in the interview process.

“And we came back to getting down to final candidates, revisiting with Jim, having a chance to spend time with Emily (Montgomery’s wife) as well. Jim just resonated with us — from his presentation of what he wanted to do, his conviction of of getting an opportunity and feeling that he was going to be a much improved coach in his second opportunity. Some of the things we discussed were the changes that he saw under head coach Craig Berube and his staff in St. Louis and what he wanted to bring, just because the involvement of Jim as a hockey coach.

“And he’s kind of a student of the game in the same way he’s a teacher of the game. All of the checkpoints, wanting to create a little bit more, looking at our roster, acknowledging that maybe there’s areas we can continue to improve, but I’m excited about the challenges of working with the players that are currently here as well and getting to a higher level. For us, it just checked the boxes of winning history. A coach that has an open mind to communication, as well as an evolving style of play — playing against Colorado (Avalanche), breaking down, taking that team to six games, and what St. Louis had to do there and really breaking down our team as well and the areas of the game that he felt our our team needed to improve upon.”

This will be Montgomery’s second run as a head coach in the NHL. He was the head coach of the Stars in 2018-19 season where he guided Dallas 43-32-7 record. Neely explained what about Montgomery’s coaching style he can bring to Boston.

“Well, one of the things that kind of stood out early on was Jim’s philosophy of getting our defensemen to move a little bit more on the offensive blue line,” Neely told reporters, as seen on NESN. “So whether they end up scoring the goals is going to be one thing, but they can create offense from being a little bit more fluid on the offensive blue line.”

Montgomery will have the offseason to work toward the season-opener on Oct. 12 as Sweeny and Neely make efforts to improve the Bruins for the 2022-23 season.

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