Some assumed it would be before the New Year, others before Christmas. Unfortunately for Jim Montgomery, it came before Thanksgiving as the Boston Bruins relieved him of his head coaching duties. The decision to fire Montgomery was not unexpected as the early issues plaguing Boston this season have only been getting worse. Prior to the 1-0 win over the Utah Hockey Club, the Bruins held an 8-9-3 record with a league-worst powerplay percentage (11.7%) and while they were technically in contention for a playoff spot, the goal for the season was not to squeak in a second wild-card spot.
Some may argue the roster of players is the true issue at hand, which may be true, but making hockey trades that bring in valuable players that can instantly make a difference is very difficult to do in November, which means the first move a struggling team usually makes is firing the head coach. Getting a new voice in the room can not only give the players a new perspective but can also make them come to the realization that due to their subpar play, a man lost his job. There has also been a trend historically for NHL teams that fire their coach mid-season, that when the new coach takes over, they tend to use the momentum to win more games – finishing the year stronger than how they started. Two of these examples came from last season – the Minnesota Wild and Edmonton Oilers.
Wild Fire Dean Evason, Find Success with John Hynes
Last season, Minnesota was not looked at as a true contender in the Western Conference, but at the minimum, was a team that should comfortably make the playoffs and can maybe win a few games in round one. They’ve had success with strong defense and superstar forward Kirill Kaprizov, leading many to assume a top-three finish in the Central Division was not out of the realm of possibility. However, those thoughts were put in serious doubt when they started the season 5-10-4 – seventh in the Central – at the end of November. Minnesota was near the basement in the NHL for goals against and penalty-kill percentage, showcasing a poor defensive structure all throughout.
A 4-1 loss to the Detroit Red Wings that marked their seventh straight defeat was the final nail in the coffin as the Wild fired head coach Dean Evason as well as assistant coach Bob Woods on Nov. 27, 2023. They hired John Hynes as the replacement.
Evason was coming off back-to-back 100-point campaigns as the bench boss, but winning only five games in the opening 19 is a recipe for being fired on any team. Hynes had no easy task coming into Minnesota, but even a slight improvement would be beneficial enough for the Wild.
Within the first month, Minnesota looked far better – going 11-3-0 – leading the NHL in points during that time (Nov. 28 to Dec. 28). In the 63 games from Nov. 28 to the end of the regular season, Minnesota went 34-24-5 (.579 points percentage), leading them to an eventual 39-34-9 record. Sitting above .500 was unfortunately not enough for a playoff spot, missing the postseason by 11 points.
The improvements were noticeable beyond the record, though. Goals against per game decreased from 3.95 pre-firing to 2.94 with Hynes. The penalty kill percentage that was sitting below 70% with Evason shot up to just under 80% with the new head coach.
Sure, the move didn’t result in a playoff berth, but the hole was already dug deep enough with the horrendous record before the coaching change that it was too big of a favor to ask Hynes to build them back up. Going on that big stretch of wins right after created a new environment that potentially transferred to the 2024-25 season as Minnesota is off to a roaring 13-3-3 record – second in the NHL.
Edmonton Fires Woodcroft, Makes Stanley Cup Final
Minnesota was not the only team to fire their head coach early into their season, as the Edmonton Oilers did it even sooner – on Nov. 12, after a disastrous start to the 2023-24 season found the Oilers second-last in the league with a 3-9-1 record. Considering Edmonton has two of the best players in the world in Connor McDavid and Leon Draisaitl on their team, expectations to win the Stanley Cup are sky-high every year. An opening 11 games like that will cause major alarms to go off and that ultimately led to the firing of head coach Jay Woodcroft.
Related: Bruins Need to Consider Replacing Sweeney After Montgomery Firing
Of any possible trades or signings, this may have been one of the best moves of any team all season long as Edmonton exploded after the hiring of Kris Knoblauch – winning 10 of their next 13 games and by Feb. 1, climbed from 31st to top 10 in the league standings with an impressive 29-15-1 record. Edmonton went from a team allowing nearly four goals against per game to a team allowing 2.65 goals against and scoring just under four.
For the remainder of the season, (Nov. 12 to mid-April), no team in the entire NHL was better than the Oilers, who went 46-17-5 (.713 points percentage). They scored the most goals (256), allowed the sixth-least (180), had the fourth-best power play (25.1%) and seventh-best penalty kill (85.3%). Their dominance was such a drastic difference from how they started the season and the coaching swap was the turning point to their success.
As we know, the Oilers not only clinched a spot in the playoffs but finished only five points back of the Vancouver Canucks for the Pacific Division title. In the postseason, Edmonton ran through the Los Angeles Kings in five games, the Canucks in a tight seven-game series and the Dallas Stars in six games en route to making the Stanley Cup Final for the first time since 2006. Unfortunately, they fell short of Lord Stanley, falling to the Florida Panthers in seven games. However, without the bold choice to fire Woodcroft when they faced early-season failures, there is a very strong chance the Oilers would not go nearly as far.
Work Still to Be Done for the Bruins
It worked for the Wild and Oilers to move on from a formerly successful coach, but that doesn’t mean it was just magically a new voice that changed the entire course of a season. The team stepped up, played a more impactful game of hockey, and clawed their way back to a respectable spot at the end of the season and in Edmonton’s case, the playoffs. The Bruins are already 1-0-0 in the Joe Sacco era, but with only one goal scored against a struggling non-playoff team, there is still work to be done. It will be a battle for Boston to go far. There is a script historically that this can be a net positive, but only time will tell how the decision will age.
