Friday: The Stars have announced Montgomery as their next head coach, the eighth since moving to Dallas.
Wednesday: In a surprise turn of events, Francois Gagnon of RDS is reporting that Jim Montgomery will be named head coach of the Dallas Stars by the end of the week. Montgomery, born in Montreal, has been the head coach of the University of Denver since 2013 and had been connected recently with both the Stars and New York Rangers head coaching vacancies. Sean Shapiro of The Athletic also believes the move is likely, though can’t confirm anything just yet.
A highly touted coaching prospect, Montgomery leaves DU just a year after interviewing for several NHL jobs last spring. A veteran of 122 games in the NHL, he has found incredible success in the coaching ranks including multiple USHL titles and a National Championship with Denver in 2017. He’ll be taking over for a legendary coach in Ken Hitchcock, and walking into a situation filled with talented—if underperforming—players.
The Stars missed the playoffs again this season, despite great individual offensive seasons from their best players. Jamie Benn, Tyler Seguin and Alexander Radulov all broke the 70-point mark, while John Klingberg recorded 67 points as one of the most dangerous offensive defensemen in the league. Still, they didn’t get enough contributions from the rest of the roster and had trouble finding any consistency in their play. Going on wild streaks in both directions, the team needs to find a way to improve for next year or risk wasting some of their prime inexpensive years with Seguin, who is an unrestricted free agent next summer.
Montgomery will also be tasked with developing some of the team’s younger players, including the prize of last year’s draft, Miro Heiskanen. Heiskanen, along with Klingberg, Julius Honka and Esa Lindell should form the core of a very good group of defenders for the next several years and will come at a relatively inexpensive price. If Montgomery can bring the best out of them, perhaps a return to the postseason in 2018-19 isn’t just a dream.
Many people, including Gagnon, believed that Alain Vigneault would be the next choice for the Stars head coaching position. Now, with the hiring of Montgomery instead, it’s not clear which direction the Rangers will go for their vacancy or where Vigneault will eventually land. Regardless, the Stars apparently feel strong enough about Montgomery’s future in the league to install him in a very important season, and hope he can orchestrate a quick turnaround for the organization.
He’s all about puck possession and locker room culture. I like the move, more so thrilled that they didn’t go after a dinosaur retread like AV or someone of his ilk.
It was such a beating watching Hitchcock’s stars hound teams on the forecheck all game just to dump the puck and try and do it all over again.Any coach who will free the defenseman up to make stretch passes and carry the puck into the zone will be a huge upgrade. Excited for next season.