Does benching David Pastrnak help or hurt Jim Montgomery?
Back-to-back wins should have assuaged some fears about the Bruins' season after their late start to the regular season. But Jim Montgomery's decision to bench $90 million star forward David Pastrnak for the third period in the Bruins' win against the Seattle Kraken on Sunday has raised more concerns about a coach who may be on the hot seat.
Montgomery, the Bruins' third-year head coach, kept Pastrnak off the ice following a neutral-zone turnover to Kraken forward Yanni Gourde.
Pastrnak told reporters Monday that he took "responsibility" for the benching, saying, "I've got to be better."
Despite what players may be saying publicly and the team's recent success, could the locker room be in danger of turning on their coach?
"He's benching the superstar player, so I don't know how much better he's doing," Adam Jones said Tuesday on WEEI's Jones and Keefe.
Jones also noted how Pastrnak's benching in Sunday's game came after the Bruins had already grabbed their only two goals in the 2-0 win.
"They were already winning with him. It's not like they were down a goal, he benched him, and the team lit up," Jones said.
Rich Keefe, who reported last week that Montgomery was "on the hot seat," said that this start to the season is atypical for the coach whose first seasons were marked by record-setting success.
"This is a team that normally comes out of the gates house on fire [under Montgomery]. They don't lose their sixth game until, like, Christmas. They're usually insane in the regular season," Keefe said.
It wouldn't necessarily take much more than a slow start for the Bruins to decide to fire Montgomery, given that NHL owners and executives have had a quick trigger with coach firings in recent years – last year, 10 coaches were fired during the season.
But harsh treatment of star players could also contribute to a dismissal, considering that part of the reason Montgomery's predecessor, Bruce Cassidy, got fired may have been his public call-outs of players. It's worth noting that Cassidy's call-outs were rarely team leaders, but instead players like Jake DeBrusk.
"The guy [Montgomery] replaced basically lost his job because the players didn't like him, and they thought he was mean, whether Cam Neely and Don Sweeney just saw that from the outside or spoke to the players themselves. Like that's how that last coach got canned," Keefe said.
"If Montgomery wants to save his job – outside of wins, wins is the most important thing — it would be, 'Hopefully, these guys may go to bat for me,'" he continued.
Still, Jones and Keefe gave Montgomery credit for sticking to his guns despite the team's record.
"Usually a coach on the hot seat might pamper [a player like] Pasta like, 'Whatever you want,' or look the other way when he turns it over. But he's at least trying to make some moves and see if that changes the results," Keefe said.
Jones agreed, saying, "I think he's going down, but he's going down swinging, which I also give him credit for."
It's certainly a different Montgomery than the one we saw in his first two seasons in Boston. Whether the crackdown helps get the Bruins on track or just leads to the end of his time in Boston remains to be seen.
"Let's see, you start alienating these star players, they get you out. They did it with Bruce Cassidy, they did it with Claude [Julien], they'll do it with this guy. So, I don't think it's going to end well for Montgomery," Jones said.
