Blues fire Drew Bannister, hire Jim Montgomery as new HC

The St. Louis Blues have fired second-year head coach Drew Bannister and replaced him with recently-fired Boston Bruins coach Jim Montgomery. The move was first reported by Sportsnet’s Elliotte Friedman.

It’s a shocking coaching change. St. Louis has struggled this season, posting a 9-12-1 record and a 3-6-1 record in what will now be Bannister’s last 10 games with the club. The poor showings have the Blues ranked sixth in the Central Division — but their poor start hasn’t come as too much of a surprise, especially as St. Louis deals with injuries to Torey Krug, Nick Leddy and Philip Broberg.

But St. Louis has deemed the losing too much, and now separate from Bannister before he could coach a full 82 games. The 50-year-old took over the Blues’ head coaching role from Craig Berube last December, earning a promotion after three years leading the AHL’s Springfield Thunderbirds. Bannister was quickly productive in Springfield, leading the team to a 43-24-9 record and trip to the Calder Cup Finals in his inaugural season of 2021-22, though the T-Birds would fall to the oft-champions Hershey Bears. 

Bannister followed the long playoff run up with a 38-26-8 record and qualifying-round exit in the following year, but seemed to have the wind behind him to start the 2023-24 campaign. He started that year 12-8-0 — on pace for 40 wins across a full season.

But Bannister didn’t get a chance to see things through in Springfield, instead jumping to a Blues roster off to a terrible start. Berube left St. Louis at 13-14-1 — again good for sixth in the Central Division. 

Bannister was forced to pick up the pieces, and led St. Louis to an admirable 30-19-5 record — bringing out the best of young lineup pieces like Jake Neighbours and Scott Perunovich. But his strong run wasn’t enough to lift the Blues above a slow start, and they’d miss the 2024 postseason by six points.

St. Louis looks to be on track to miss again this year. While the Blues certainly have faced bad injury luck, the team has struggled to find any scoring from down the lineup — with just four players with 10-or-more points through 22 games this season. 

They haven’t been helped along by what was meant to be strong goaltending, with starter Jordan Binnington posting a .891 Sv% and 3.04 GAA in 17 games, and backup Joel Hofer recording a .893 and 3.45 in six games. That paints the picture of top-to-bottom struggles in St. Louis, despite GM Doug Armstrong pushing for a heap of overturn and new faces this season.

That change will now continue with a coaching change. Montgomery served two seasons as a Blues’ assistant coach in 2020-21 and 2021-22, getting hired off their bench into Boston’s head coach role. He proceeded to lead one of the greatest seasons of all time, setting the single-season wins record with a 65-12-5 standing. 

Montgomery brought career performances out of David Pastrnak, Linus Ullmark and Jeremy Swayman — though Boston couldn’t manage to push past the first round of the playoffs. Unbothered, Montgomery stayed red-hot through 2023-24, following his record-breaking campaign with an impressive 47-20-15 record and second-round playoff exit. 

Those two seasons — a combined 112-32-20 record — made it all the more surprising when Boston chose to axe Montgomery after an 8-9-3 start to the season.

Despite a bad start, Montgomery is clearly a successful NHL coach – inspiring strong play since his first year at an NHL helm, when he led the 2018-19 Dallas Stars to a 43-32-7 record. He continued with a 17-11-3 record in 2019-20 — but stepped down midseason for personal reasons. His first sighting after that was on the Blues’ bench that he’ll now head back to.

The connection between Montgomery and St. Louis runs deep. The Blues signed Montgomery as an undrafted free agent in 1993, immediately after he captained the University of Maine to their first NCAA championship in school history. It was a legendary season that saw Montgomery and Paul Kariya — another famous Blue — lead perhaps one of the greatest collegiate offenses of all time. 

Montgomery kept the show going into the pros, earning a quick call-up after scoring 15 points in his first 12 minor-league games. He put up six goals and 20 points in 67 games on the Blues’ roster — but couldn’t hang onto a lineup role on a roster that routinely turned over their depth lines. 

That kicked off Montgomery’s journeyman career around North America. He’d go on to play 11 more professional seasons, but changed teams every year — save for a three-year stint with the AHL’s Philadelphia Phantoms from 1997-2000, that kicked off with a Calder Cup championship.