Boston Bruins coach Jim Montgomery wins 2023 Jack Adams Award

At Monday’s NHL Awards Ceremony in Nashville, Coach Jim Montgomery rounded out his historic first season on the Boston Bruins’ bench by winning his first Jack Adams Award as the NHL’s top coach.

“I view this award as a team award,” Montgomery said. “It’s a reflection of the great Boston Bruins organization.”

Montgomery replaced Bruce Cassidy, who went on to win the Stanley Cup with the Vegas Golden Knights, last summer after the Bruins’ brass grew frustrated with Cassidy’s inability to take a loaded but aging Boston roster to the promised land.

Though Cassidy is now a champion elsewhere, GM Don Sweeney would be hard-pressed to say that Montogomery did not get the most out of the Bruins in what may have been the swan song of team legends Patrice Bergeron and David Krejci.

While Boston infamously coughed up a 3-1 lead to the eventual Eastern Conference champion Florida Panthers in the first round of the postseason, they were a regular-season juggernaut under Montgomery.

Dominance on both ends of the ice enabled the Bruins to break the 1976-1977 Montreal Canadiens’ record for points in a season (132) with a 135-point effort; their 65 wins also broke the previous 62-win high-water mark set by the 1995-1996 Detroit Red Wings and 2018-2019 Tampa Bay Lightning.

In Montgomery’s return to head coaching, the Bruins led the league in team defense by an incredible 36 goals while scoring 301 times, good for second-most in the NHL. He had served as an assistant for Craig Berube in St. Louis since 2020 after being dismissed from the Dallas Stars for personal reasons in 2019.

Montgomery beat Dave Hakstol of the Seattle Kraken and Lindy Ruff of the New Jersey Devils for the coveted trophy. Hakstol and Ruff each led major turnarounds en route to second-round playoff exits.

The 2018 NCAA Champion’s Jack Adams victory continued what was predictably a banner night for Boston. Earlier in the night, Patrice Bergeron won a record sixth Selke Trophy as the best defensive forward, and goaltender Linus Ullmark added a Vezina Trophy to the Jennings Trophy he shares with Jeremy Swayman.