Sports Betting: Which Former Bruins Coach Will Advance?

There are still a pair of former Boston Bruins coaches alive and kicking in the NHL Stanley Cup Playoffs. While the Bruins dig through the letters of interest for their open head coaching position, former bench bosses are showing well.

Jim Montgomery is leading the St. Louis Blues to a potentially league-shaking upset of the heavily favored Winnipeg Jets. Those who enjoy NHL betting overwhelmingly sided with Winnipeg. Yet, those scrappy Blues have tied the series 2-2 and chased the prohibitive favorite for the Vezina Trophy, Connor Hellebuyck, from the net.

The Bruins fired Montgomery 20 games into this season after the personable coach was clashing with locker room leaders and even castigated captain Brad Marchand on the bench. After two outstanding seasons that ended in playoff defeat, the poor start was Montgomery’s undoing.

Overall, Montgomery was 120-41-23 in his two-plus seasons with the Bruins. And St. Louis GM Doug Armstrong quickly scooped him up.

Now, his Blues are looking like a solid bet on the NHL futures market against the rattled Winnipeg squad. Game 5 is Wednesday in Winnipeg.

Racing to the Western Conference finish line is the coach whom Montgomery followed as the Bruins’ coach, Bruce Cassidy. The Golden Knights were also heavily favored to dispose of the Minnesota Wild, but find themselves in a war against Minnesota and Karill Karpizov, who is playing extraordinarily well.

Kaprizov is performing like a Conn Smythe candidate with eight points, including four goals in the first four games.

Of course, Cassidy got the last laugh on the Bruins and GM Don Sweeney for his termination when he helped guide Vegas to their magical 2023 Stanley Cup run that captured the new hockey market. Cassidy helped fulfill Golden Knights owner Bill Foley’s “Cup in six” predictions when he first received the expansion franchise.

In five-plus seasons, Cassidy coached 399 games for the Bruins, posting a healthy 245-108-46 record with six playoff appearances. However, the Bruins never earned that championship parade they so deserved (We’ll go ahead and skip mentioning that series against St. Louis).

Of course, the Bruins’ former captain is still playing, as well. Brad Marchand and the Florida Panthers pulled off an extraordinary third-period comeback with a pair of goals in 11 seconds to win a hotly contested Game 4 against the Tampa Bay Lightning in the Atlantic Division Round One series.

After contract negotiations broke down, Sweeney decided to trade Marchand and acquiesced to Marchand’s request to go to the defending Stanley Cup champion, Florida. Marchand had been nursing an injury prior to the trade and took a while to enter the Florida lineup. He played in only 10 regular-season games, scoring two goals and two assists.

Marchand is a pending free agent and has two assists in the first four games of the series.

With their comeback in Game 4, Florida is poised to close out that brutally physical series, in which suspensions and fines have been levied, in Game 5 on Wednesday.