Meet the rising college coach who’s earned a Rangers look

When the Rangers consider University of Denver’s Jim Montgomery for their head-coaching vacancy, here is one story from his first real gig behind the bench that seems to sum him up.

It was 2013, and Montgomery was in his third year as the headman for the expansion Dubuque Fighting Saints in the USHL. After winning in his first year — and the team’s inaugural season of 2011 — the Saints were up 2-0 in the championship series, a best-of-five contest against the Fargo Force. They were then up 2-1 in Game 3 with less than a minute to play when Fargo pulled its goalie and scored, sending Montgomery’s downtrodden team back to the locker room before the overtime period.

“He went in the locker room and told all the guys, ‘Listen, we’re going to be fine.’ He was extremely positive,” said Adam Micheletti, at the time the director of hockey and business operations for Dubuque. Micheletti, the son of Rangers analyst, Joe, had hired Montgomery.

“We had a lot of players that were down, especially our goalie. The way [Montgomery] was able to speak to them, he was focusing on the little things. He’s very much into the process. He said, ‘We just need to stick to the process and we’re going to get the results we want.’ Then we were really good in OT, scored seven or eight minutes in to win.

“That part really exemplifies what he’s about. It’s about the process and doing the little things right. If you work hard and pay attention to the details, good things happen.”

see also

Rangers next coach must find way to fix the defensive chaos

Regarding the Rangers, about to embark on their first visit…

As the Rangers search for someone to replace Alain Vigneault, Garden executive chairman James Dolan recently said they are looking for a coach who can “develop players and develop a team.” Although general manager Jeff Gorton remains steadfast in the confidentiality of his search, he reiterated in Toronto on Saturday when the draft lottery landed the Rangers the No. 9-overall pick, previous head-coaching experience — and likely success — is a prerequisite for any candidate.

So there is Montgomery, who left Dubuque after two championships in three years to take over at Denver, where he has made two Frozen Fours and won both the national championship and national coach of the year award in 2016. The 48-year-old has shot up the coaching ranks in a very short period of time, and Micheletti saw it coming when he first interviewed him in Dubuque.

“The thing that stuck out was he was a great teacher — he kept stressing that during interviews. And he also wanted to win,” said Micheletti, whose team (and Montgomery) also benefited from having four future NHLers on the roster, including Johnny Gaudreau and Zemgus Girgensons. “Certain people, when you start listening, you truly believe what they’re saying. He was immediately like that.”

Montgomery was born in Montreal and was a terrific player, a center who captained Maine to the national championship in 1993 and left school after four years as the all-time leading scorer. Undrafted, he signed with the Blues, eventually bouncing around with the Sharks, Canadiens, Flyers and Stars for a total of 122 NHL games.

He retired in 2003, and soon started looking for coaching jobs. Shawn Walsh, his former mentor and coaching legend at Maine, was good friends with Jeff Jackson, a former Islanders assistant under Steve Stirling who had taken over as the head coach at Notre Dame in 2005. Jackson remembered summering in Traverse City, Mich., with Walsh — who died in 2001 — when the two would have fun answering hypothetical questions. One was what former player would be the best coach.

“That’s when he mentioned Jim Montgomery,” Jackson said. “First guy out of his mouth.”

Jackson had already hired his full-time assistants that first year, but Montgomery was willing to come on as a volunteer. They quickly turned around the Fighting Irish, and Montgomery left the next season to be a full-time assistant at RPI, where he spent four years honing his craft.

“My time doing this, as you get older, one thing you’re proud of is developing young coaches,” Jackson said. “He had the ‘it’ factor.”

Both Jackson and Micheletti agree Montgomery can handle the pressures of being behind the bench on Broadway, but now it’s on the Rangers to see if they think the same.

“I knew it was inevitable that [Montgomery] was going to end up in the NHL, just because he’s that talented,” Jackson said. “That’d be a tough move for him to leave Denver, but he’s at an age where these opportunities only come along so often.”