Former University of Maine hockey captain Jim Montgomery has been a winner everywhere he has been, and the Boston Bruins are hoping that trend continues by naming him their new head coach.
The Boston Globe reported Thursday that Montgomery has been named to succeed Bruce Cassidy, who was fired by the Bruins and then hired by the Las Vegas Golden Knights.
It came on Montgomery’s 53rd birthday.
He had been an assistant coach with the St. Louis Blues for the past two seasons after being the head coach of the Dallas Stars.
Montgomery, UMaine’s all-time leading career scorer who led the Black Bears to their first NCAA title in 1992-93, won two Clark Cup championships in three years as the head coach/general manager of the Dubuque Fighting Saints in the United States Junior Hockey League.
He then guided the University of Denver to NCAA Tournament appearances in all five of his years there, including the NCAA championship season in 2016-17.
Montgomery won the Spencer Penrose Award given to the nation’s top Division I coach in 2016-17.
He left Denver after the 2017-18 season to take over as the head coach of the Dallas Stars and, in his first season, he led the Stars to a 43-32-7 regular season record and their first playoff appearance in three years.
The Stars won their first round series, eliminating the Nashville Predators in six games, before taking eventual Stanley Cup champion St. Louis to a seventh game in the next round and losing 2-1 in double overtime despite 52 saves from former UMaine goalie Ben Bishop.
The Montreal native will be coaching another former UMaine goalie in NHL All-Rookie team selection Jeremy Swayman this coming season.
Montgomery got off to an 18-11-3 start in his second season behind the Stars bench but was fired for “unprofessional conduct,” after which Montgomery checked himself into a rehabilitation program for alcohol abuse.
He has been sober since.
Montgomery and former New York Rangers and Boston University head coach David Quinn were rumored to be the frontrunners for the Bruins job.
Montgomery, who concluded his career at UMaine by scoring a hat trick in the third period to lead UMaine to a come-from-behind 5-4 victory over Lake Superior State in the 1993 NCAA championship game, finished with 103 goals and 198 assists for 301 points in 170 games at UMaine.
The All-American and Hobey Baker Award finalist has had his No. 19 jersey retired and he was inducted into the UMaine Sports Hall of Fame in 1998.
The 1992-93 team, which went 42-1-2, was inducted into the Hall in 2017.
Montgomery compiled a 114-45-21 record in his three seasons in Dubuque and was 125-57-26 in his five seasons at Denver.
Despite being undrafted, the Montreal native did play in 122 regular season games in the NHL and had nine goals and 25 assists.
Montgomery and his wife Emily have four children.