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In Boston the last two years, Montgomery’s Bruins made the playoffs comfortably by 18 points last year and by 44 points in a record-setting 2022-23 season. When he was an assistant in St. Louis for two years, the Blues made the playoffs with decent cushions: 15 points in 2022 and nine points in 2021.

But in Montgomery’s first year as an NHL coach, his 2018-19 Stars had to claw their way into the playoffs, clinching a berth on the third-to-last game of the season thanks to a late-season run. Right now, Montgomery’s Blues entered Tuesday’s game in Nashville 8-2-2 since the 4 Nations break, hoping to push hard for a playoff spot in the season’s final month.

Are there similarities?

“Very similar,� Montgomery said. “Where it’s really similar is I thought in Dallas that year, we were struggling going into the All-Star break, we had that eight-day break, we came back and we started to play the right way. We didn’t get the results like we’ve gotten here right away. But you could see it as a group, our confidence was growing, our trust in each other was growing, and the results came.�

The teams are different, sure. That Dallas team was essentially a one-line team with Jamie Benn, Tyler Seguin and Alexander Radulov. Radek Faksa was actually the team’s fourth-highest scoring forward with 30 points. Ben Bishop turned in a Vezina-caliber season with a .934 save percentage.

These Blues are much deeper (six forwards with at least 35 points), and play a team game that hasn’t relied on excellent goaltending to deliver results. Under Montgomery, the Blues have become an elite team defensively and entered Tuesday on a 13-game streak of allowing fewer than 30 shots on goal.

The situations are slightly different, too. The Stars never had to overcome an eight-point deficit like the Blues have bridged since the break. But Dallas was a bubble team the entire season. In mid-December, they were four points out of the postseason. ÁñÁ«ÊÓƵ went 1-4-0 into the late January All-Star break, and were tied for a wild card position. They fell out of a playoff spot on Feb. 27.

In a late March homestand, the Stars went 1-3-1 with a chance to separate themselves.

“I remember we had a five-game home stand, we went 1-3-1 and I honestly thought we should have been 3-1-1,� Montgomery said. “I was really confident that we were going on the road and we were going to make the playoffs. I’m starting to get that same feeling here, just the belief that we are going to control our own destiny if we keep playing the same way.�

Montgomery said he already drew on that experience in Dallas in helping the Blues turn around their season at the break.

“I knew simplicity is what helped us then, and simplicity now in messaging, in video, in how we practice, I think has helped our situation,� Montgomery said.

The Stars closed that season on a 14-7-2 run that began by snapping the Blues’ 11-game win streak.

“(The Blues) were really good in the first period,� Montgomery said. “It was like ‘Wow, that’s a playoff hockey level of intensity.’ We knew we had to pick it up. We did. We got some real ugly goals at the net-front, which helped create that getting bodies to the net (mentality) because we had a big, physical team.�

You know how that Stars season ended: on the stick of Pat Maroon in double-overtime of Game 7 in the second round. Likewise, you know how the rest of the postseason went for the Blues, lifting the Stanley Cup in Boston a month later.

Faksa is the only player that played on both teams. And while he didn’t find the seasons similar because Dallas was in a playoff position for much of the year, he echoed Montgomery’s thoughts about how simple the Blues are currently playing.

“I think we started doing the simple stuff,� Faksa said. “We won a couple games, everyone got excited and everyone saw what works, and everyone started doing it for each other. Before, we try to do it on their own page, now we play a team game and it works. Also, everyone was kind of worried about the deadline and we love this group of guys, so everyone tried to do their best to push and make the playoffs.�

The Blues entered Tuesday with an even goal margin for the first time since Oct. 26, and with a chance to have their highest points percentage since that same date.

“Since the break, we are playing really good hockey,� Faksa said. “Even the games we lost, we’ve played really well. I think if we play like that, we have a really good chance to make it. We have huge games coming up, especially against Vancouver. The playoff time started for us already a while ago.�