ST. LOUIS (KMOX) - The St. Louis Blues will have a new head coach behind the bench Monday night when they play the New York Rangers.
On Sunday, the Blues announced that they had fired Drew Bannister and replaced him with former Boston Bruins and Dallas Stars head coach Jim Montgomery, with Montgomery being signed to a five-year deal.
For Montgomery, it's marks a return to the Blues organization that he previously had been with from the 2020-2022 seasons as an assistant coach, and it was only less than a week ago that he was fired from his role as head coach of the Boston Bruins.
President and general manager Doug Armstrong told reporters on Sunday he did not anticipate making a change until Montgomery became a free agent.
“This was more of an opportunity to get someone of Jim’s caliber than anything else,” Armstrong said on a video call with reporters. “When I talked to Drew today I told him this was more of a decision based on the availability of someone I think is a top NHL coach, someone that we have experience with, someone I really do believe can coach this team and also coach the team when it reaches its ultimate level of competitiveness."
Montgomery, who will make his Blues head coaching debut Monday at Madison Square Garden against the New York Rangers, inherits a Blues team that has struggled with injury trouble through 22 games so far this season, notable to defenseman Philip Broberg and center Robert Thomas, and sits only three points ahead of rivals Chicago Blackhawks, who sit dead last in the entire NHL in points.
On Monday, Tom Ackerman, Matt Pauley and Bernie Miklasz discussed the Blues decision to move on from Bannister and hire Montgomery less than a week after he was given his pink slips from the Bruins.
"The more I found out about this, the more I'm convinced that not only was it inevitable, it was going to happen one way or another," said Miklasz on 'The Gashouse Gang'.
"Montgomery was going to be the Blues next head coach, it was just a matter of would it happen in-season, midseason, or would he finish the whole season, become a free agent and then sign with the Blues. It was going to go down one way or another."
Pauley discussed some issues as to why the fit with Bannister didn't work.
"As I have felt bad about Drew Bannister, that's backed off on me a little bit and the reason why is because he lost the job for very much the same way he got it," said Pauley. "A core group of players got Craig Berube fired, he benefited from that, and that same core group of players have not performed well enough and he lost the job because of it for the same reasons."