ST. LOUIS – As the St. Louis Blues march on to playoffs, head coach Jim Montgomery pulled off a feat rarely accomplished over the course of NHL history. He was fired by one team and led another to the playoffs in the same season.
Montgomery was dismissed as head coach of the Boston Bruins on Nov. 19, 2024. Just five days later, he took over for the St. Louis Blues, replacing Drew Bannister.
At the time of the coaching change, the Blues were 9-12-1 and considered a long shot for playoffs. But under Montgomery, slowly but surely, the Blues climbed back into the playoff picture. A late-season franchise-record 12-game winning streak, combined with fewer prolonged slumps down the stretch, helped turn what once felt like an uphill battle into a playoff berth.
All told, Montgomery finished his first (albeit abbreviated) regular season as Blues head coach with a 35-18-7 record, which included a league-best 19-4-2 record (40 of 50 possible points) in the team’s final 25 games.
And just like that, the Blues clinched the Western Conference’s final playoff seed on the final day of their regular season, an outcome Montgomery felt was ambitious, yet realistic from the start.
“I thought as soon as I coached the first game against the Rangers, I saw how much depth of talent was here, and I thought if we could get to the right places, and our habits and our game management [improved], that we would be able to do this,” said Montgomery, who added “it took longer than I expected” to clinch, but the payoff made the wait worth it.
This marks just the third time over the past decade that an NHL coach has taken over a new team midseason and guided them to playoffs after being fired from a different team in the same season.
Claude Julien (now a Blues assistant coach) did so for the Montreal Canadiens in the 2016-17 campaign, and like Montgomery, after he was let go by Boston. Pete DeBoer did the same in the 2019-20 season, fired from the San Jose Sharks and leading the Vegas Golden Knights to playoffs months later.
Before that, such instances were even rarer, as in-season coaching changes have become more common in today’s NHL.
Montgomery credited the leadership around him for the team’s turnaround.
“Great leadership, led by our captain [Brayden Schenn],” said Montgomery when asked what sparked the Blues playoff run. “I thought consistency by the staff and the players with our communication [was strong], and I just thought we grew so much culturally and in our team identity. And those two things, when our players like ‘togetherness,’ words I used, those were words they used [down the stretch]. Selfless, sacrifice, love.”
Schenn returned the praise for Montgomery, his fourth head coach as a member of the Blues.
“I can’t give you one thing, but presence and communication and care for his players,” said Schenn on Montgomery’s qualities. “Guys feel that. Guys are adults. Guys aren’t fooled by a coach who shows he cares about his players. I truly believe he does. He is great with everyone. He has humor with them, communication with old guys and young guys, and he’s gotten a lot of good hockey out of a lot of guys.”
This isn’t exactly unfamiliar territory for Montgomery either. He previously coached the Dallas Stars and Boston Bruins for parts of five seasons, making the playoffs in every season he finished at the helm. And just two years ago, he coached the Bruins to an NHL-record 135 regular-season points and 65 wins.
Still, his history with the Blues runs deep. Montgomery debuted in the NHL as a player for St. Louis in 1993, and decades later, he returned as an assistant coach for two playoff runs under former Blues head coach Craig Berube.
Now thriving as head coach, Montgomery hopes the team’s late-season surge can carry well into the playoffs.
“It feels really good, and I love the way we did it,” said Montgomery on clinching playoffs with Tuesday’s win. “We got back to who we are in the first 60 minutes, and the first eight minutes, I knew we were going to win. … There was a purpose. There was an intent. We got to our A-game right away.”
Reflecting on the journey ahead, Montgomery says of his Blues squad, “What they’ve learned is what it takes to win in this league. It’s such a great experience to understand the grind, and the mental grind, more than the physical grind, it takes to win battles, to win every foot of ice in this league – it’s the greatest league in the world – in big moments. And being able to come through in big moments, this is going to give us years of good vibes.”
The Blues open their 2025 Stanley Cup Playoffs ride against the Winnipeg Jets. Game 1 set for Saturday at 5 p.m. The rest of the playoff schedule will likely be announced later Thursday evening, upon the official conclusion to the NHL’s regular season.