Bruins reportedly moving on from one of their assistant coaches

The Boston Bruins are reportedly making a switch on Marco Sturm’s coaching staff.

According to David Pagnotta of The Fourth Period, the Bruins are moving on from assistant coach Jay Leach, with Boston choosing not to renew Leach’s contract this offseason now that his current deal is up.

This marked Leach’s second tenure within the Bruins’ organization.​

The 46-year-old coach rejoined Boston in June 2024 as an assistant coach for Jim Montgomery before remaining on Sturm’s staff during the 2025-26 campaign.

Leach previously served as head coach of the Providence Bruins for five seasons from 2017-21 before making the jump to the NHL as an assistant coach for the Seattle Kraken.

Leach was viewed as a rising star in the coaching ranks during both his time with Providence and later in Seattle, with the former NHL D-man tasked with running Boston’s defense during his latest stint in Boston from 2024-26. He also took a greater role in running the club’s penalty kill in 2025-26.

But Boston’s defensive structure struggled during each of the last two seasons under Leach’s watch.

During a miserable 2024-25 campaign, the Bruins ranked 26th in the NHL in goals allowed per game at 3.30.  

Some of those struggles can be chalked up to Jeremy Swayman’s regression and the personnel put in place on Boston’s blue line during this retooling stretch for the Original Six franchise.

But even though Swayman bounced back in 2025-26, the underlying numbers of Boston’s defense were still unsightly this past year.

Though Boston was largely pedestrian this year on defense as far as goals allowed per game at 3.01 (14th overall), most of that was a direct result of Swayman bailing them out.

When it came to expected goals against per 60 minutes of play last season, only the Islanders had a worse showing than the Bruins, who were tied for second-to-last in the NHL with the Maple Leafs at 3.57.

The Bruins also ranked 30th in the league in high-danger scoring chances allowed per 60 minutes at 13.52 — tied with arguably the worst team in the league, the Vancouver Canucks.

Boston’s penalty kill also labored over the last two seasons — ranking 24th overall in both 2024-25 (76.3 percent) and 2025-26 (77.0 percent).

With Boston reportedly moving on from Leach, Sturm will have an opportunity to choose a new voice to help run his D corps. The Bruins only added one new coach after Sturm was named as Boston’s bench boss in June 2025, with the club eventually hiring Steve Spott last summer to help fix the team’s ailing power-play unit. 

Even with a late lull down the stretch, Boston’s man advantage did respond under Spott’s watch, ranking ninth in the league with a 23.4 percent success rate.

 

Conor Ryan is a staff writer covering the Bruins, Celtics, Patriots, and Red Sox for Boston.com, a role he has held since 2023.