While Bruins fans and the Boston sports media have been focused on former B's coach Bruce Cassidy this week, current coach Jim Montgomery sat down for one of his first interviews since the Bruins' end-of-season press conferences.
Montgomery appeared on "The Raw Knuckles Podcast" with Chris "Knuckles" Nilan this week for an hour-long interview that covered his entire hockey career. Obviously, the part that's going to interest Bruins fans the most was what Montgomery had to say about this past season and Boston's disappointing first-round exit.
Montgomery discussed that plenty, and was asked if he at all regrets how he handled veteran centers Patrice Bergeron and David Krejci, both of whom entered the playoffs with injuries that forced them to miss games during the first round.
Just as he did right after the season, Montgomery said he still doesn't have any regrets in that department, even though Bergeron's injury occurred in the final game of the regular season.
"We don't think so," Montgomery said. "Internally, we had looked – I think Bergeron sat six of the last 18 games, something like that. [Author's note: It was four, not six.] It was really calculated, scientifically, of how we were gonna get ourselves best prepared for Game 1 of the playoffs. We set the records, that was great, but we sat guys. We sat out four players one game in Carolina and we won it in a shootout. I think it was Marchand, Lindholm, Bergeron, and maybe Orlov – I don't remember.
"But you're sitting out four guys, you're not going for the record. You're going to set yourself up for Game 1 of the playoffs. We wanted Krejci to play the last game of the year, but he was having issues throughout the year. The amount of practice time those guys sat out was … we don't second-guess ourselves with what we did as far as that."
Montgomery also faced some criticism for playing Bergeron in Game 5 against the Florida Panthers after the Bruins had taken a 3-1 series lead without him. Obviously, the Bruins went on to lose all three games Bergeron played, and he certainly didn't look like his usual dominant two-way self.
Montgomery said he still doesn't regret that either, though.
"I also don't second-guess myself putting Bergeron in Game 5," he said. "People were like, 'Why don't you just save him for the second round?' Could you imagine what people would be saying if they knew I didn't play Bergeron and he was healthy Game 5 and we lost? I mean, he scored.
"Unfortunately, it lingers with us what happened. We own it. We know we lost to a good team in Florida – they're in the finals – but we still were up 3-1. You find a way to close that out. That's the competitor in us, it's hard to let go. But we have to move forward. Like what do we learn from this? Especially with our young core players that are gonna be here a long time. How do we all grow from this and make sure that, whatever happens in the regular season, that the next time we get to the playoffs, that we own the moment?"
Montgomery did go on to share some of the lessons he's learned and some of the things he's working on, including getting better at reading body language. You can watch the full interview here:
