The ever-affable Jim Montgomery fielded questions from Boston reporters on Thursday morning ahead of his first game back at the Garden since he and the Bruins’ parted ways a little over a year ago, when one scribe started to diplomatically address that parting.

“So Jim, when you were let go…” went the question before the St. Louis Blues coach interrupted, having none of the euphemism.

“I got fired!,” said Montgomery, through his familiar belly laugh. “Call it what it is!”

There was no hint of bitterness in the coach’s tone. He was just telling like it it. He’s also knee-deep in trying right the ship with his own team to be too concerned with what happened a year ago. The Blues are one of the more disappointing teams this year and he’s coming off a minor spat with his goaltender Jordan Binnington after he pulled the netminder in their loss to Anaheim on Monday (they’ve made nice and Binnington was pegged as the starter on Thursday).

So much has happened since Montgomery was canned by the Bruins on November 19, 2024, for both organizations. Montgomery was hired by the Blues less than a week later and almost immediately that team took off, making it into the playoffs before they blew a two-goal third period lead and lost to the Winnipeg Jets in a Game 7, in double overtime.

The B’s, meanwhile, proved that it wasn’t just the coach. They got a new-coach bump under interim Joe Sacco but then they sputtered, triggering one of the biggest sell-offs (Brad Marchand, Brandon Carlo, Charlie Coyle, Trent Frederic, Justin Brazeau) in their history.

“Honestly, it feels like a lot longer. It sure does,” said Montgomery. “Just everything that’s transpired in less than a year or just over a year.. It’s pretty remarkable, but that’s the day and age of the NHL.”

Montgomery’s short time in Boston was mercurial. He can’t look back on the record-setting 65-win season in 2022-23 without it being stained by the stunning first round upset at the hands of the Florida Panthers.

Less than a year a half later, he was not only fired by the B’s but quickly hired by the Blues, where he had been an assistant before being hired by the B’s and had maintained a home.

“It happened so quickly, I was still in the mode of where did I go wrong, what did a I do wrong and then all of a sudden, the phone rings. It helps you get over it quicker but I still felt like it would have been healthy to have more time. It’s just the way my brain works,” said Montgomery.

“If you’re going to grow as a person, you have to realize whether it’s your personal life or your professional life, what exactly you could have done better. That’s what I look at. I don’t look at what others could have done better. I don’t control of others.”

Did it soften the blow at all that the Bruins’ would eventually recognize that they were at a crossroads with their roster and it wasn’t all his fault?

“I don’t think times that teams fail that it’s just one person,” said Montgomery. “Everybody had a hand in the success of the great year that we had that one season and everybody had a hand in why we failed last year. And I would say the same thing in St. Louis. Last year, everybody had a hand in why we took off like we did. And this year why we struggled, the same thing, everybody has a hand in it.”

He said that how his season unfolded last year in Boston is helping him deal with the struggles this year, and added a couple of film critiques to sharpen his point.

“There was no question that I was better prepared to handle the lack of success than I was last year. And expectations drive a lot of that,” said Montgomery. “Last year, the expectations were that we were going to be a playoff team. Didn’t work. So everybody has these high expectations. Kind of like going to a movie. I remember going to see The Usual Suspects. No one told me it was a great movie. I left there floored. I had to go watch it three more times to figure out who Keyser Soze was. But then I’ve gone to movies where people are like ‘this movie is the best movie ever’ and I leave halfway through. Pulp Fiction I left halfway through, because so many people said it was so great. It’s like 10 mini stories in one movie. It’s not the way my brain works. But that’s what happens with sports teams as well.”

His biggest takeaway from his time in Boston that’s applicable to coaching is learning how the team hierarchy should work.

“After working with great leaders like (Patrice) Bergeron and (Brad) Marchand and (David Pastrnak) and Charlie (McAvoy), you really know how the flow of conversation should work between a staff and the leaders and how important that is to the success and growth of the team throughout the year,” said Montgomery.

While he stressed that Thursday’s game mattered to him, a lot, he wasn’t expecting any emotions to be running through his mind. He’s got too much on his plate right now for that.

He admitted a part of him missed the electricity of a sports city like Boston, a current that can be double-edged. It was why when he was fired, he immediately drove to his kids’ school to head off on chatter to which they no doubt would have been exposed.

But back in Boston on Wednesday night, dining at Bricco in the North End, he felt the good vibes again.

“We loved living in Boston. We loved every part of it,” said Montgomery, who added he had 28 people coming in from Winchester where he lived. “It’s just such a great (environment). Being in the energy of the city last night, it made me miss Boston. But my life is in St. Louis now. I’m grateful for my time here but I’m very grateful to be in St. Louis.”…

Victor Soderstrom was the call-up for the injured Michael Callahan, who was moved to the IR. The 24-year-old Soderstrom has 1-8-9 totals in 18 games with Providence.

Charlie McAvoy took part in the morning skate while wearing a non-contact jersey, though coach Marco Sturm told reporters in Brighton that there’s still no timeline. That goes the same for David Pastrnak, who has not yet begun to skate….

Zdeno Chara will be on hand to help kick off the grand opening of Eleveno, the new indoor pickleball facility at Patriot Place, on Friday at 10 am.

The 40,000-square-foot facility is located in the South Marketplace and has nine professional courts.