Bruins' Sweeney explains coaching change: 'You can't stay in neutral'

Boston Bruins general manager Don Sweeney detailed why he felt the need to change course one day after firing head coach Jim Montgomery.

"We're 20 games in," Sweeney said Wednesday. "You might think it's a smaller sample size, I just didn't like the direction. ... Our team can't stay as close-knit as they've been, they can't get through the adversity piece within a game, and they can't respond from game to game."

The executive added: "We want to find out what this team is capable of based on where we're at right now with 60 games to go. There's a lot of season. But you can't stay in neutral."

Montgomery was on the last season of his deal and Sweeney revealed they held unsuccessful contract talks over the summer. Coupled with the team's underperformance, he felt as though he had to make a decision.

"Moving forward, that rests with me now," he said. "From a personnel standpoint and the players themselves, they have to understand that they're not where they need to be. We're either going to get back there, or there'll be continued changes across the board."

Sweeney made it clear that Montgomery hadn't lost the room, adding that the Bruins' issues are "confounding" and "team-wide."

Boston held its first practice Wednesday under interim head coach Joe Sacco, who's been with the team as an assistant since 2014.

Despite the familiarity with Sacco, it was a somber day for the players.

"Very frustrating because this is a reflection of our play, and it was avoidable," captain Brad Marchand said. "That's the tough part about this. If we would have done our job in here, (Montgomery) would still be around. We feel terrible as a group and individually that we let a really good coach and really good person down."

The Bruins currently sit in fourth place of the Atlantic Division with an 8-9-3 record. For comparison, they went 14-3-3 through their first 20 contests of the 2023-24 campaign.

Defenseman Charlie McAvoy said he doesn't know what went wrong exactly, but he's confident Boston can turn things around.

"You want to go back to camp or the beginning of the season or whatever it was, we lost it. We lost it for a minute, and this is life," he said. "These things happen.

"But today you wake up and you realize that you still have the best job in the world playing for the best team in the world. ... We've got everything to play for and that's the crest, that's each other, that's everything. It's all going to be all right."

The Bruins will play their first game under Sacco against Utah on Thursday.