Brian39
Registered User
- Apr 24, 2014
- 7,187
- 13,200
I do not wonder this, because it isn't just one outlier season. He has had two great seasons in Boston and a very strong resume beyond that.
The 135 point season was remarkable. I don't care how talented your team is. 135 points is outperforming your roster, full stop. 65-12-3 is a ludicrous record in a hard cap league. It's a great record even if you can assemble a full blown all star team with no cap restrictions. Their 54 regulation wins is 6th all time and the most since Detroit won 59 of them in 1995/96.The dynasty Oilers best year was 53 regulation wins in 80 games. The dynasty Isles best year was 54 wins in 80 games. Getting 135 points out of any roster in the cap era is absolutely remarkable and I certainly don't look at that roster and think that it is clearly the best cap roster ever assembled.
But it wasn't just that season. They drastically outperformed their roster this year too. Pasta is amazing. Marchand is still very good, but he's not the player he was a few years ago when he was a genuine offensive stud. After that the forward group is extremely thin. Their 1-2 center punch is Pavel Zacha and Charlie Coyle. Both were just over 18 minutes a night this year (career highs) and they had 59 and 60 points (career highs). Their next best forward is Jake Debrusk and then the rest of the top 9 is rounded out with Morgan Geekie, Trent Frederic, Danton Heinen and a 34 your old JVR.
I get that Pasta was incredible and dragged that offense at times, but finishing the year 12th in goals scored with that group is remarkable.
The D group is very good, but Lindholm has had indisputably the best 2 seasons of his career under Montgomery. The goalies have been incredibly good as well. Boston banked a ton of points on the backs of personnel that makes them very hard to score against, but I don't think these players are good enough that 109 points is the expected result. This is a roster that should have been much closer to the playoff bubble than the President's trophy. Yet they were just 5 points back of the Rangers, 1 point back of the Panthers for the division and made the playoffs with an 18 point cushion. With a top 6 center group of Pavel Zacha and Charlie Coyle.
I think this season very much is a big point in his reputational favor and the rest of his resume is positive as well.
He got Dallas to the playoffs (and took or Cup team to a game 7) in his first year as their head coach. They had missed the playoffs the previous 2 seasons. The next season, Dallas was .610 when he left the team and they finished the year .594 (before going to the Final in the bubble). They missed the playoffs the following season.
He joined us as an assistant for 2020/21. I don't think anyone knows how much credit/blame he deserves for the way 2020/21 and 2021/22 went, but the team had a great year in 2021/22 followed by a pretty bad year after he left to go coach Boston.
Pre-NHL, his teams did a lot of winning. He took DU to the Frozen 4 twice and won a National Championship. He won two USHL championships in his three year stint in that league. Since he became a head coach in the USHL in 2010, his team has never missed the postseason. That's 3 years in the USHL, 5 years in the NCAA, and now 6 years in the NHL (or 4 if you exclude his time as an assistant here).
He has a hell of a resume beyond Boston's incredible 2022/23 season.
You can argue that his system relies on being able to run out a strong goalie tandem (Bishop/Khudobin, Binner/Husso, and Ullmark/Swayman). I think you can equally argue that his system is favorable to goaltenders, but for the sake of this post I'll concede that he needs a strong goalie tandem to have success. I'm extremely comfortable with our goalie tandem for the short and medium term.
I think the hype is justified and if Boston fires him he is by far my favorite candidate. I think it would be a big mistake for Boston to fire him and I think they will miss the playoffs next yeaar if they do. They might miss the playoffs next year anyway, but I think firing Monty would greatly increase those chances.
I know that blowing a 3-1 lead 2 years in a row would be unprecedented and I'm not wild about the way he's managed the goalies in either of the last 2 playoffs. But at the end of the day they'd have beaten the Panthers in 5 if Marchand buries an end of regulation breakaway last year and that Panthers team then went on a run to the Cup Final. That was a very good team once Bob entered the series and brought his A game. I think that they were fortunate to be up 3-1 on the Leafs this year and have a clearly worse roster than the Leafs. I'd have picked the Leafs in 5 if you could guarantee competency in net, so them clawing back into the series after Woll took over isn't a huge indictment about Boston IMO.
It would be a red flag, but not something that would remotely outweigh his overall resume for me.
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Nashville shut out of the playoffs by a third stringer. Ya hate to see it.
