Jim Montgomery made an immediate impact with the St. Louis Blues after replacing Drew Bannister as head coach, earning a 5-2 road victory over the New York Rangers in his debut.
“It felt like something,” Blues captain Brayden Schenn said. “It felt like we were having fun out there. That’s the main part. It felt like we weren’t sitting back and we played with energy tonight, and we played with the puck. Just wasn’t a couple chances we were able to generate. Power play had a couple good looks. It was just fun to be out there.”
The Blues will try to keep the good times rolling Wednesday night in Newark, N.J. against the New Jersey Devils.
St. Louis lost 3-1 at the New York Islanders Saturday night to fall to 9-12-1. Come Sunday morning, Blues general manager Doug Armstrong hired Montgomery to take over for Bannister.
Montgomery, who was fired as head coach of the Boston Bruins last week, previously worked as an assistant coach for the Blues and forged a relationship with about half of the team’s current players.
“He brings a ton of energy to the rink,” Schenn said. “He likes to have fun. At the same time, he’s detailed and he’s serious and he’s respected. It’s our job to bring the energy with him.”
When the coaching change was made, the Blues ranked 26th in the NHL standings by points percentage, 25th on the power play and 24th in penalty killing. They are scoring 2.48 goals per game, which is the league’s fifth-worst average.
“This is a talented roster,” Montgomery said. “We’ve got a lot of guys with really good offensive hockey sense. If we’re committed to checking like we were, the offense is going to come.”
The Blues will catch the Devils in the middle of a prolonged hot streak. New Jersey has won three straight games and eight of 10. After starting the season 5-4-2, the Devils have gone 10-3-0.
They are coming off a 5-2 victory over the Nashville Predators on Monday night at home.
“Every game, we have a plan,” Devils captains Nico Hischier said. “If you execute it, gives ourselves a chance to win a hockey game. The plan switches, depends who you’re playing.”
Hischier led the charge in Nashville by scoring his first NHL hat trick.
“Just happy for him,” Devils center Erik Haula said. “He’s just such an important player for us, obviously. Eight years and first hat trick. You’d think he has five or six of them.”
Prior to that outburst, Hischier had gone 10 games without scoring a goal.
“He starts the season on absolute fire, and then he goes cold for a while there,” Devils coach Sheldon Keefe said. “His demeanor didn’t change, his game didn’t change, most importantly he didn’t cheat the game. He continued to meet the tough matchups every night head on, continued to lead the way for us in the faceoff circle and penalty kill.”
New Jersey will be without forward Timo Meier on Wednesday after he was given a one-game suspension for cross-checking Nashville’s Zachary L’Heureux and drawing blood.
