The Boston Bruins are rounding out head coach Jim Montgomery’s 2024-25 coaching staff as the club announced on Wednesday, they’ve hired Jay Leach as an assistant coach.
Leach has spent the past three seasons as an assistant with the Seattle Kraken and reunites in Boston after spending five seasons with their American Hockey League affiliate Providence Bruins where he was head coach from 2017-21. Leach compiled a 136-77-26 with the AHL Bruins.
The 44-year-old Leach played 13 seasons of professional hockey which spanned across the ECHL, AHL and NHL. The Syracuse, NY native finished his NHL career with 70 appearances which included two games with the Bruins back in 2005-06 and parts of four seasons playing in Providence.
Bruins general manager Don Sweeney had this to say about bringing Leach back to the organization via a team release, “The Boston Bruins are excited to welcome Jay Leach back to the organization. Jay was a very successful coach with the Providence Bruins where he greatly impacted our player development system, and he also brings valuable experience as an assistant coach from the Seattle Kraken. We believe Jay will integrate quickly and complement our current staff as he comes back to the Bruins to work with our defense corps.”
Along with Leach, the Bruins have made a couple of other transactions, including promoting Joe Sacco to an associate coach and moving John McLean from his previous position as assistant coach to a new role within player development as a skating and skills coach.
Leach joins Montgomery’s staff which now includes Sacco, Chris Kelly, Mathew Myers, Dan Darrow. Boston finished last season with a 47-20-15 record and lost to the Florida Panthers in six games during the second round of the Stanley Cup Playoffs.
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