ST. LOUIS — If the Boston Bruins hadn’t fired Jim Montgomery on Tuesday, Drew Bannister would still be the St. Louis Blues head coach.
That’s how Blues general manager Doug Armstrong explained his decision to fire Bannister on Sunday morning, after just 22 games this season, and replace him with Montgomery.
“There was no inclination to make a coaching change,” Armstrong said. “When Jim got let go in Boston, he was someone I’ve respected, someone I’ve admired, someone I felt had all the attributes to be a long-term coach for the Blues. This decision was based, I would say, almost 100 percent on having someone of Jim’s caliber become available.”
Montgomery and the Blues agreed on a five-year contract, and after a conference call with Armstrong and the team’s captains Sunday morning, he is expected to join the club in New York on Sunday night ahead of its game against the Rangers.
The news wasn’t a complete shock.
The Athletic laid out the possibility last week because the Blues weren’t living up to Armstrong’s expectations of competing for a playoff spot this season along with Montgomery’s sudden availability.
The club went 39-31-6 in 76 games under Bannister. It dropped to 9-12-1 on the season after a 3-1 loss to the New York Islanders on Saturday — six points back of a wildcard spot in the Western Conference standings.
In 22 games this season, the offense has scored two goals or fewer 13 times and one goal or fewer seven times. The power play is ranked 25th in the NHL (16.7 percent) and the penalty kill is No. 24 (75.9 percent).
“When I talked to Drew today, the situation that we were in — a young coach learning, learning with young players — it wasn’t an easy situation for him to walk into,” Armstrong said. “I thought he did a good job. He was making mistakes. We were all making mistakes. So Drew was learning as we went on.
“I was more than prepared to go through the peaks and valleys with Drew until Monty became available, and then it just felt like that might not be available over the next few years. I didn’t know when the next opportunity would come, and I felt it was the right thing to do for the Blues franchise.”
Drew Bannister was fired Sunday just 22 games into his first full season as Blues coach. (Dilip Vishwanat / Getty Images)
The Blues had interest in Montgomery last offseason, but when Boston advanced to the second round of the playoffs, Armstrong took the interim tag off Bannister and announced a two-year contract for him to be the head coach.
When asked Sunday if Montgomery was indeed the focus of the Blues’ internal discussions last summer, Armstrong replied: “He really wasn’t because he had a job. I don’t spend a lot of time on the wish list of what’s out there. Quite honestly, I didn’t spend much time thinking about Monty this summer.”
But it’s clear after Montgomery’s hiring that he would have been on the wish list had there been one. Armstrong said he’s a coach who can help the club now and in the future.
“He’s really at the prime of his coaching career right now, and we’re the benefactors of that,” Armstrong said. “He’s the full package, or at least we hope he’s the full package. He can coach a team that’s evolving and coach a team that is evolved and ready to win. As we continue to learn how to be competitive on a nightly basis, Monty can push us all to get better, and then when we get there, he can take us to the promised land.”
It’s was evident, too, that Armstrong didn’t see Bannister as that guy, making references to the fact that inexperience behind the bench can no longer be used as an excuse as the team tries to find its way in the coming weeks.
Montgomery was 120-41-23 in Boston, including the highest single-season win total in NHL history (65-12-5) in 2022-23.
“I go back to when Ken Hitchcock came in — coaching is not an issue,” Armstrong said. “He is a hell of a coach. The game is old. It’s 100-plus years old, and he’s got the best record in any one season. He knows how to coach. So if there were any questions marks about that, that is gone now.”
Despite making the move that he felt was best for the organization, Armstrong acknowledged the perception of a coaching carousel in St. Louis, which will have its third guy behind the bench in less than a calendar year on Wednesday.
Bannister was promoted to replace Craig Berube in mid-December last year. He becomes the fifth coach fired by Armstrong, after Davis Payne, Ken Hitchcock, Mike Yeo and Berube.
“I certainly understand if that’s how people are viewing it,” Armstrong said. “I think the one with Craig, it was a heck of a run and a change was needed. I think Drew coming in and doing a good job as the interim was positive. We went through the process last year of thinking about other coaches and I came back that Drew had done enough to warrant the opportunity to learn on the job here in the NHL and work through that.
“As I said, I woke up (earlier this week) and had no plans of doing this type of a news conference at all. Except a coach that I believe is a difference-maker became available, and we reacted to it.”
Armstrong insisted that the move says nothing about the state of the Blues’ retool.
“When we first talked about the retool, we used the (Los Angeles Kings’) model for three or four years, and we’re 1 1/2 years into it,” Armstrong said. “One of the things that we’re doing is we’re waiting on (Dalibor) Dvorsky, (Jimmy) Snuggerud, (Otto) Stenberg, (Theo) Lindstein and (Adam) Jiricek. Those are five first-round picks that we’re excited about having.
“It’s very important for me to say that our vision of where we’re at has not changed. When we said that we were going to retool, bringing in Monty today doesn’t put Dvorsky, Snuggerud, Stenberg … any closer to playing. That comes with maturity. What it does, it gives us a really good coach for today and tomorrow.”
As for today, are the Blues a potential playoff team this season with Montgomery now at the helm?
“Our record would indicate that, no, we’re not headed to the playoffs,” Armstrong said. “I think our season to date has fluctuated. We’re obviously having a hard time on both ends of the special teams and scoring goals, and that’s not a good recipe to have success.
“I think getting those (Philip Broberg and Nick Leddy) back will help stabilize things. Losing Robert Thomas, like we did, took away from the offense, and it hasn’t come back since he’s come back. So we have our work to do. We have a lot of things that Jim has to get organized to his satisfaction, and we’re able to move ahead.”
(Photo of Jim Montgomery: Bruce Bennett / Getty Images)
