Ex-Stars coach suffers consequence of his actions in missing the Cup run he helped pave
Should the Dallas Stars be the last team skating after this NHL season, Jim Montgomery’s name will not appear on the Stanley Cup. But there will be some invisible fingerprints.
The team’s former coach was hired from the University of Denver by Stars’ GM Jim Nill, and in Monty’s first and only full season, the club shed what Montgomery called their “culture of mediocrity.”
Montgomery’s story is just another example of what can happen when demons dictate decisions. He was fired in early December for his choices, and a consequence is he misses out on a Stanley Cup run.
His former team is in the Stanley Cup Finals for the first time in 20 years, however, Montgomery is also back, in a manner of speaking. On Wednesday, the St. Louis Blues hired Montgomery as an assistant coach.
Montgomery was fired by the Stars on Dec. 10, not for anything having to do with hockey; the club fired him for what it called, “unprofessional conduct.”
Sources said his relationship with alcohol was essentially the reason for the firing, as Montgomery had multiple incidents of behavior that the team had warned him to change.
On Jan. 3, he released a statement in which he conceded to what had occurred, and he said he was going to check into a rehab facility for treatment.
While the Stars did the right thing in firing Montgomery, so did the Blues in bringing him back into the league.
Blues general manager Doug Armstrong said Thursday that he had reached out to Montgomery a few weeks ago about this possibility.
“We got into how it ended in Dallas,” Armstrong said in an Zoom media session with the media. “He was very forthright and he gave me contacts of people he’s using [for support] that I could contact.
“Everyone deserves a second chance,” he said. “Everyone makes mistakes. It doesn’t matter how good of a coach you are if you are not going home to an environment that is not healthy. His family was supportive of this decision.”
If anyone was going to hire Montgomery this quickly, it was the Blues.
Armstrong is the former Stars assistant GM and GM, and he was with Montgomery when he played nine games for the Stars between the 2001 and 2003 seasons.
Armstrong has a long list of contacts with the Stars to potentially call, and vet, any candidate.
“I talked to Jim and his wife and his support staff,” Armstrong said. “I don’t want to say it was a background check, but it was an extensive process to make sure, away from the rink, Jim was ready to handle the demands of coaching.”
Between Montgomery’s time as the head coach at the University of Denver, where he won an NCAA title, and with the Stars, no one could say he was a bad at his job.
At the time he was fired, the team was 17-11-3, and that was after starting the season with one one win in their first nine games. Last year, in his first season, the Stars reached Game 7 of the Western Conference semifinals where they lost in overtime to the Blues, the eventual Stanley Cup champions.
Would the Stars have reached these Stanley Cup Finals with Montgomery, rather than interim coach Rick Bowness, behind the bench?
NHL coaches are the most disposable of the major professional sports, so we’ll go with this: Who knows?
“From a coaching standpoint, we kept a lot of the same. Everyone was very comfortable with Bones as a coach to begin with. His presence in the room,” Stars forward Andrew Cogliano said on Thursday on a Zoom interview from Edmonton.
“In terms of system, it pretty much stayed the same. It was a whirlwind [the coaching change]. That was a time that was very different for a lot of us. Coming out of the [COVID] break, we changed a few things. We are where we are. It’s worked.”
Hiring Montgomery straight from the NCAA level with no NHL coaching experience was a bold move, as was firing him in the middle of a successful run.
While the extent of the specifics of his transgressions are personal, and doubtful to ever come out, they are his and he suffered the consequences.
Professionally, a team he coached is in the Stanley Cup Finals, and he is not a part of it. If you are Jim Montgomery, that stings.
And should the Stars go ahead and win it all, Montgomery knows his fingerprints will be all over the Stanley Cup — even if his hands never get to hoist it.
