Jim Montgomery Firing a Remidner That Boston’s Loss Was Vegas’s Gain

Earlier this week, the Boston Bruins fired head coach Jim Montgomery.

Montgomery enjoyed a lot of success in Boston. He amassed a regular season record of 120-41-23 and made the playoffs in both of his full seasons, including a historic Presidents Trophy campaign in 2022-2023. However, following back-to-back postseason exits at the hands of the Florida Panthers and a disappointing start to the 2024-2025 season, the Bruins decided to move in a different direction.

When Montgomery was hired in Boston in the summer of 2022, he replaced the incredibly popular and successful Bruce Cassidy, who led the Bruins for six seasons. Like Montgomery, Cassidy enjoyed a ton of regular season success in Boston, making the playoffs in all six of his years there. Also like Montgomery, however, Cassidy was never quite able to get over the ultimate hump there. He led the Bruins to the Stanley Cup Final in 2019, but they lost a Game 7 to the St. Louis Blues on home ice in heartbreaking fashion.

After getting fired by the Bruins, Cassidy quickly landing on his feet with the Golden Knights. Less than a year later, he led Vegas to their first Stanley Cup in franchise history.

A little over two years after the Bruins made the controversial decision to move on from Cassidy, he is thriving on the other side of the country, with a Stanley Cup ring to his name and currently behind the bench of th first place team in the Pacific Division. Meanwhile, Boston is once again looking for a new head coach.

Obviously, no situation is black and white. But if the past two-plus years have shown us anything, it is that Cassidy was clearly not the main cause of the Bruins’ issues.

After all, the Bruins have now fired three Jack Adams Award winners—the honor given to the NHL’s coach of the year—within the past eight years. It seems fairly obvious that the organization has larger-scale problems, and good coaches are continuing to take the fall for the failures of management.

The biggest beneficiary here? Why, that would be the Vegas Golden Knights. As a result of the Boston-Cassidy breakup, Vegas was able to land an elite coach who quickly took them to the mountaintop of the NHL.

So as the drama continues to unfold in Boston following the firing of Jim Montgomery, Vegas fans should be thankful. If not for the Bruins’ internal drama, the Golden Knights would not have landed the coach who won them a Stanley Cup and has them right back in the mix for another.

As the firing of Jim Montgomery reminds us, Boston’s loss truly was Vegas’s gain. And as long as T-Mobile Arena continues to sit on The Strip, a banner will hang in the rafters serving as a constant reminder of such.