Photo: NHL.com

According to ESPN’s Kevin Weekes, the Boston Bruins will name former Dallas Stars bench boss Jim Montgomery, who spent last season as an assistant on the St. Louis Blues’ staff, as their next head coach. The sides agreed to a contract for around three years and $6 million.

The Bruins fired Bruce Cassidy after the team finished the 2021-22 regular season 51-26-5 (.652 points percentage), sixth in the Eastern Conference. The Bruins were three points behind the Tampa Bay Lightning for third place in the Atlantic Division and seven points ahead of the Washington Capitals for the first wild-card spot. They fell in the first round of the 2022 Stanley Cup Playoffs to the Carolina Hurricanes in seven games.

The team fired Cassidy with the desire to get younger and they felt like he was not the right fit.

The Bruins finished the regular season 15th in goals-per-game (3.09), fourth in goals-against per game (2.66), tied for 15th on the power play (21.2%), and ninth on the penalty kill (81.3%).

The Stars fired Montgomery for unprofessional conduct after starting the 2019-20 season 18-11-3. He went into an inpatient residential rehab program and found himself behind the Blues’ bench after.

In his first season as a head coach, the Stars earned the first wild-card spot in the Western Conference with a 43-32-7 record before falling in double overtime of Game 7 to the eventual Stanley Cup Champion Blues in the second round in 2019.

Over his tenure in Dallas, the Stars ranked first in the NHL in goals-against per game (2.40) and fourth in penalty killing (83.5%). However, they also ranked 28th with an average of 2.56 goals-per-game but 13th with a 19.9% power-play efficiency.

Before his job with the Stars, Montgomery went 125-57-26 (.663 points percentage) over five seasons as the head coach at the University of Denver.

The Winnipeg Jets are now the only team currently without a head coach for the 2022-23 season.

The Vegas Golden Knights replaced Pete DeBoer with former Bruins and Washington Capitals head coach Bruce Cassidy on a reported contract that will pay him $4.5 million for five seasons. The Philadelphia Flyers hired John Tortorella, who signed a four-year contract that will pay him $4 million per season, on Friday. The Dallas Stars brought in DeBoer after Rick Bowness resigned and the Florida Panthers hired Paul Maurice to take over for Andrew Brunette. Lane Lambert will take over for Barry Trotz on the New York Islanders’ staff. Former Montreal Canadiens assistant Luke Richardson got the Chicago Blackhawks’ head coaching job. On Tuesday, the Detroit Red Wings replaced Jeff Blashill with former Tampa Bay Lightning assistant Derek Lalonde.

**Keep an eye 👁 on ** Per @MurphysLaw74 and @mattmurley19 who had Jim Montgomery as the next HC for @NHLBruins first – I’m told if/when deal gets over the line, it’s roughly in the neighborhood of 2M X 3Yrs. @espn @NHL #HockeyTwitter

— Kevin Weekes (@KevinWeekes) June 30, 2022

By Harrison Brown