The Boston Bruins have a new head coach, and the Ontario Reign are now in the market for a replacement.
Thursday morning brought the announcement that Marco Sturm is taking the Boston head-coaching job, replacing interim head coach Joe Sacco.
With Sturm off to the Bruins, the Reign now need a new head coach. Sturm had spent the past three seasons the Ontario head coach and qualified for the Calder Cup Playoffs each time. He went 119-80-11-6 in regular-season play, including a 43-25-3-1 mark in 2024-25. However, the Reign quickly exited the Calder Cup Playoffs in a first-round sweep by the San Jose Barracuda.
Sturm, who played 938 NHL games, will be returning to Boston, where he spent parts of five seasons in the latter half of his career. After retiring, he joined the German national team as its head coach and general manager and took the team to a silver medal at the 2018 Winter Olympic Games. He then went to the Los Angeles Kings organization and spent parts of four seasons as an assistant coach before taking the Ontario job in 2022.
While the Bruins have been a top contender for the better part of the past two decades, including for a portion of Sturm’s time there as a player, the team has fallen considerably in the past year.
Boston fired Jim Montgomery last Nov. 19 with the team stuck at 8-9-3. Sacco stepped in, but Boston’s season fell apart following several moves that sent established NHL players out of town at the NHL trade deadline. Boston endured an 0-9-1 slide from March into April and finished 28th in the NHL with a 33-39-10 record. That drop came just two years after the Bruins had set NHL regular-season records with 65 wins and 135 points. Back-to-back disappointments in the Stanley Cup Playoffs coupled with a slow start to the 2024-25 regular season cost Montgomery his job, and Sacco could not revive the Bruins, either.
So, it is clear that Sturm will be stepping into a difficult situation in Boston.
What can Boston fans expect from Sturm?
Given the constantly changing roster that an AHL head coach has to manage as well as developmental needs having different weight from one organization to the next, it can be ill-informed to draw too many conclusions from one’s year-to-year performance.
But Sturm’s club finished 10th on the penalty kill (83.5) in the 2024-25 season. There was a 23rd-place finished the season prior, but his team ranked second on the penalty kill in 2022-23 at 84.4 percent. Like all AHL head coaches, he attempted to build a defensively responsible team, and the Reign mostly succeeded there as well. They tied for eighth in the AHL in 2022-23 in goals-against, sixth in 2023-24, and 10th this season. Ontario also allowed 26.3 shots per game this season, third-best in the league.
Composed but intense. He is not one to praise his players heavily publicly nor is he one to levy too much in the way of harsh criticism. With his NHL playing background, he had instant credibility with both prospects and veterans. For a team like the Bruins that will be counting on young players to take significant steps, that NHL authority both as a player and assistant coach that he brings should be helpful. Friendly but to-the-point, he made his objectives and expectations clear. With his history in Boston, he also certainly understands the organization’s legacy, fan base, and winning expectations. He was with the Bruins as they slowly grew into an NHL power in the 2000s before winning the Stanley Cup in 2011. If all goes well for the Bruins again, they would take a similar path as they try to put this past season behind them.
In short, Sturm is very much a what-you-see-is-what-you-get type of coach. He is not one to panic after a couple of losses nor is he one to get too carried away during a winning streak.
Reign assistant coach Chris Hajt could be a candidate to replace Sturm. The 46-year-old has spent nine seasons as an AHL assistant coach for the Los Angeles organization, including the past six with Ontario. He also served as an interim replacement for John Wroblewski along with Craig Johnson during the 2021-22 season.
With the Ontario post open, there are five AHL head-coaching vacancies. The Reign join the Bridgeport Islanders, Calgary Wranglers, Iowa Wild, and Lehigh Valley Phantoms as teams in need of a new head coach. Iowa head coach Brett McLean took an assistant coach’s position with the Vancouver Canucks on Thursday.
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