If you’re a Blues fan without internet then you may not have heard that the team made a pretty surprising move today by relieving head coach Drew Bannister of his duties and immediately replacing him with a familiar face: Jim Montgomery, who just got fired by Boston less than a week ago.
The move came as a pretty unexpected one across the league, as Drew Bannister has been serviceable in his short time with the Blues since taking over midway through last season for Craig Berube. After taking over last season, the Blues had the 12th best points % in the league (essentially if they had that pace the entire season, the Blues are in the postseason). However what makes this move less surprising is the term I used in the first sentence of this paragraph: serviceable. Maybe not this season, and maybe not next season either, but Doug Armstrong/Alex Steen/owner Tom Stillman are not trying to build a serviceable hockey franchise. When the Blues inked Bannister to a short extension this summer, I took it as two possibilities.
- Bannister shocks the world and takes this team to deep playoff runs (with this roster that’d be a miracle).
- He keeps the Blues as a middle of the pack team and helps develop young talent, something he’s proven to be decent at, and is basically a bridge guy for when the Blues are ready to contend again.
Now the ladder option here should’ve still given Bannister job security for the next 2 seasons, however when Boston fired one of the best coaches in hockey that unfortunately changed for him. Here’s some #’s from stat guy Pat on Monty:
-when he was Assistant Coach for the Blues from 2020-2022 he was in charge of the power play. In that time the Blues had a top 3 power play in the league, a department they currently rank 29th for this season under Bannister.
-when Monty was coach of the Dallas stars they a Stanley Cup contender, taking our Blues to double OT in game 7 of the 2nd round in 2019 (personally I think the Stars beat San Jose just like we did, then who knows against that loaded Boston team we somehow beat).
-in his first season for Boston they broke the all time record for wins in a regular season, points in a regular season, and won the Jack Adams award for the NHL’s coach of the year.
To put this into non-hockey terms, let’s pretend the Blues are a beautiful perfect woman that was with an amazing gentleman of a man (Craig Berube). Let’s call this woman Gloria, for no particular reason.
They unfortunately break up despite some amazing years together, because in this world love isn’t even real outside of Ryan Reynolds and Blake Lively.
Shortly after the breakup, Gloria starts dating a nice sweet innocent man named Drew (Bannister).
Things are going just fine, however all the sudden one of the most sought after men in Hollywood goes through a nasty public divorce and is in the market for a new partner.
We all know what happens next…
The reality is I think Drew Bannister is a serviceable, solid coach that I wouldn’t be shocked if he got another job elsewhere in the league soon.
However when a top tier coach in the league, who knows STL (Monty’s wife is from here), is already familiar with the organization, and has proven to take teams to new heights, becomes available you cannot pass it up.
This is an awesome move by Doug Armstrong and Steen today, between Monty being our coach in the coming years and Steen heading up GM duties next year the Blues are setting themselves up for success starting soon and long term which is a refreshing feel from the past two abysmal seasons.
The Morning Skate 