Bruins Coach Comments On His Patrice Bergeron Replacement

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James Connelly
September 1, 2023 (11:02)

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Coach Jim Montgomery watched his top two centers retire this offseason and has now commented on his Patrice Bergeron replacement.

Bergeron And Krejci Retire

After having the best regular season in NHL history, the Boston Bruins looked primed to win a Stanley Cup. This was up until they were bounced in the first round by the Florida Panthers.

After this defeat, Patrice Bergeron and David Krejci both decided to call it a career and retired.

Many thought that the Bruins would use free agency as a way to acquire their new first-line center but they did not sign any potential first-line centers and decided to resolve their center problem with in-house talent.

Montgomery Comments On His Bergeron Replacement

The Boston Herald recently revealed what are the projected lines for the Bruins next year after they interviewed Jim Montgomery.

Montgomery has his first two lines pretty much mapped out, at least tentatively. He expects to pair Pavel Zacha with David Pastrnak, with James van Riemsdyk most likely getting the first look at left wing on that line. He expects the other top line will be Charlie Coyle centering Brad Marchand and Jake DeBrusk.

With Montgomery expecting Pavel Zacha to be his Patrice Bergeron replacement, he obviously has a lot of faith in him. Before last season, his career high in points was 36. However, he did shatter that last season with 57 points.

Here's what Montgomery had to say about Zacha:

«I think (Zacha's ceiling) is significantly higher,» he said. «Not only is he physically prepared, more importantly I believe he's ready for this mentally for the kind of minutes, the responsibility of having to be played in all situations � which he did really well last year � but they're going to be more important minutes. But I just think he's mentally ready. He believes that he can do it. That's the biggest step for a player. I have a lot of confidence that our top two lines will be very good because I believe Charlie Coyle knows he can do the job and will do the job and Pavel Zacha does too.»

With Montgomery showing this faith in Zacha, we could watch him emerge as a true first-line center and finally fill the potential he once had when he was selected 6th overall in the 2015 draft.

As seen on the Boston Herald -Jim Montgomery still bullish on the Bruins