So... Monty got handed a bit of a mess here. This is a deeply 'eh' roster at its core, honestly, with some really questionable contracts on it and a lot of cap money used on players who have not had a good year or two (Pastrnak is incredibly talented, but it's hard to watch him right now- particularly in his own zone- and see anything but a disinterested and checked-out star who occasionally wakes up from his coma). A lot of the problems have been camoflauged by the ridiculous one-two punch in net- you can afford to play like crap when night after night you toss out a goalie who swallows everything sent at him. But... Ulmark isn't here anymore, and the expected rise to full-starter by Jeremy Swayman was marred by the long contract fight, the holdout that cost all of camp, and... like Pastrnak, it's hard to see how someone this talented is having this poor of a performance. His GAA is starting to get close to my shoe size. Luckily, only seven and a half more years on the books, right?
And that's the thing. Montgomery wasn't getting much out of his players at this point, and it shows on the standings right now- as I type this on November 20, Boston is in a position to very likely miss the playoffs, or at the very least be like the Capitals last year, sneak in at the very end to get rolled by a much better team in forgettable fashion. That's not great- and a change had to be made, particularly following their getting run off their own ice by Columbus on Monday. Thing is though, Montgomery isn't the problem- it's the idiots that handed him this roster. Don Sweeney (and Cam Neely, who most certainly has his hand moving Sweeney's mouth) simply isn't good at his job. The B's rank near-last in prospect pool strength, because his drafting is just dismal. Want proof? Hit up Wikipedia, look up the 2015 draft, and look at the first round. For those who don't remember it, Boston had THREE first-round picks in a row. Look them over- the only one that had any NHL impact for the Bruins was Jake DeBrusk (now in Vancouver), and even he was iffy on his value, being incredibly streaky. But now look at the rest of that draft- go through the rest of the first round and the second, see if any familiar names pop out at you. I'll wait.
Yeeeeah, that hurts to look at, doesn't it? THAT'S the Don Sweeney experience. And that one is just the poster child- there's few drafts where one can look at the results and confidently say 'yeah, that's pretty reasonable, good job guys'.
You can't fire the owner (god knows I've dreamed of launching him into the harbor with a trebuchet). Neely, as team prez and B's legend, isn't going anywhere. But Sweeney built this team, and he's the one who should be packing his office this morning- not INSTEAD of Montgomery, but at the very least sharing a cab to the airport with him.
Side note- I'm a Denver native, I've watched a lot Avalanche hockey over the years. That 'interim' tag needs to stay in blinking LED lights above Joel Sacco's head. Rotten choice to take over, let's make it as brief as we can.
