Raised by liars that told me that there's 'good' in everybody, as I've aged on into a young man, I simply can't help but notice that some people are just flat out bad. Now, perhaps dubbing them all around bad is a bit of a hyperbole, but they're just not very good at what they do, or rather what they choose to do.
No, this isn't a blog about how terrible certain defensemen have been during their brief and mercilessly disastrous stints in Boston (Hi, Derek Morris, Joe Corvo, et cetera, et [expletive] cetera), but rather the forever-boisterous fans that don their Black-and-Gold goggles all day, everyday in support of their beloved Boston Bruins. Their passion aside, one of the things these Boston hockey fans love to do is criticize the coaching style of one
Claude Julien. Despite five straight years of playoff hockey in Boston, with the Bruins never registering fewer than 91 points in a season under Julien, the 52-year-old bench boss has never been the guy for a considerable contingent of B's fans out there. Even with Julien becoming the figurehead for Boston's rise back to the top of the National Hockey League's order of relevancy, nearly making the
Dave Lewis era of Bruins hockey a nightmare that never happened, for some, the Claude system is too boring. It's not made for offensive players. It limits the growth of a player's skills, gives a bottom-six skater too much ice-time on a nightly basis, and results in lackluster play. Julien doesn't have the fire to pump his guys up, the passion to give guys the necessary kicks to get going, or the attitude that makes his players stop a bullet in pursuit of an elusive Stanley Cup.
Well, that's the case according to those guys, anyways, and in directly related news, it's also entirely incorrect. But before we jump into this, let's take a minute to confirm that this is not a cheerleading piece about the Bruins' coaching situation. I don't think that Julien and company are thee perfect coaching staff, but they're far, far,
far from the worst.
Something that Bruins fans, especially with a new multi-year extension officially in place for Julien, need to (finally) acknowledge.
When Julien arrived to Boston, the Bruins were a hopeless case. Sure, they had young pieces that could contribute with the development of guys like
Patrice Bergeron and
David Krejci, but the Bruins' core was essentially built around a 6-foot-9 defensemen that had never won anything, a journeyman goaltender that never posted anything better than a .917 save-percentage, and a 'selfish' top-line center by the name of
Marc Savard that had
P.J Axelsson and a one-legged
Glen Murray on his wings.
Screw biting your tongue, let's be honest: The team sucked.
Arriving with nothin' but hope that things would be different, instead of joining the likes of Lewis and
Mike Sullivan and becoming another cog in the machine that bred Boston's losing ways, Julien took what he had and changed the entire image of Bruins hockey.
Instead of pushovers, the Bruins answered the bell, largely thanks to the addition of
Shawn Thornton and the then-19-year-old
Milan Lucic. Julien invested trust in guys like Krejci,
Vladimir Sobotka, and
Dennis Wideman. He relied upon veterans like Axelsson, Savard, and
Marco Sturm, and he reined developing stars like
Phil Kessel in when he needed to. He stuck his neck out to make moves that could've drastically altered the course of the season and even his tenure as B's coach -- varying from benching Kessel in the playoffs or letting Krejci center the top-line in lieu of Savard -- and led Boston back to playoff "success." But while the success wasn't measured by anything more than forcing the East's No. 1 seed to a seventh game in the first round, and there were no banners on their way towards Boston's rafters, accountable and responsible hockey found its way back to a city that desperately craved and needed it.
And for Julien's Bruins, it was just the beginning, but as a 2008-09 of career-highs for just about everybody left Bostonian's considerably happy with Julien, especially when a Jack Adams came his way despite a second round failure, the doubt grew. Was Julien the guy for this squad, or better yet, could he be the guy to take 'em from good to great, and great to elite? Regardless of the accolades, and even with Boston earning their first Northeast title since the 2003-04 campaign, nobody really knew. The aforementioned worries of the pessimistic were only magnified by a turbulent 2009-10 campaign that saw the B's stumble their way towards the fewest goals in the entire league, but (brief) relief came with an improbable first round victory that saw the sixth seeded Bruins bump the division-winning Buffalo Sabres in six games, propelling them to the second round for the second straight year. From there, a 3-0 series lead over Philadelphia put Julien's club in the driver's seat for a trip to the Eastern Conference Final with the Montreal Canadiens.
Then little by little, Boston's grip on Philly eased, and ultimately ended with the Flyers becoming the third team in league history to overcome a 3-0 series deficit. Julien stood there, a dead man walking if there was one. There was no way that Julien wasn't going to be fired for the third time in four years, right? Add in the scrutiny the Bruins would face from the ruthless, Cup-starved Boston market and it was clear that Julien was the perfect scapegoat for
Peter Chiarelli and company.
But that's not how it played out as the Bruins opted not to put the choke on Julien.
Instead, they reloaded, upgraded, and bolstered their club's on-ice talent, giving Julien an unofficial final chance to make things work with a talent-laden Black-and-Gold core. Riding the offensive upgrades all the way to Boston's second Northeast title in four years, it was 0-2 hole that left the Bruins looking like a club in need of a major coaching shake-up. "This is why he was fired in New Jersey," somebody told me. "He's your classic 'Great regular season, mediocre postseason' type of coach." As staunch of a Julien defender as I was, I couldn't disagree. Claude, for as great as he was throughout the regular season, looked like a guy that knew his job was on the line, perhaps trading a few last barbs at the Boston media when pressed about the absence of Chara in what would be a Game 2 loss against the Montreal Canadiens. For the first time that I could recall, he looked genuinely befuddled by what was happening to his club.
Heading to Montreal for what many expected to be a final cry of playoff futility, Julien's troops rallied, and marched back to win the series. Exterminating the Game 7 ghosts that had haunted the B's since the coach's first year behind the Boston bench, the Bruins found revenge with a four-game sweep in round two before Julien outsmarted 1-3-1 mastermind
Guy Boucher in the third round, only to move on and beat his best friend
Alain Vigneault in seven games to capture Boston's first Cup in nearly 40 years.
Finally, Julien's efforts to bring a 60-minute style of play to the Hub worked.
It wasn't easy, and it wasn't for the faint of heart, but the guy did it. Yet, in a moment that could've been his to throw in everyone's face, the humble bench boss opted to make his case as a plain ole' normal guy. "I’ve always said that I will never change as a person. I came up from a modest background and I’ve always tried to remain modest," Julien said when asked about joining the ranks of 'legendary' Boston coaches thanks to the Cup win back in June last year. "I just hope that people look at me as a normal personal. And I told my wife the other day, if I could have on the Stanley Cup and just walked out of that rink and gone home, I would have been a happy guy. I’m fine with winning and leaving it at that. And that’s why I am enjoying just watching from my players’ eyes. Because that’s what means a lot to me is seeing those guys be rewarded."
For Julien, this is what it's always been about: The players. In all of the NHL, it's hard to find a coach that players genuinely seem to like playing for more than Claude. He's your classic player's coach, and that's something that's worked more than its share of wonders for Boston. You've almost never heard of spats between (insert player here) and Julien, nor have you seen a player refuse to change his game in order to fit into the B's system. But perhaps most impressive of all, Julien's embodied a coach that's aware of the league and its changes on a year to year basis, and has without hesitation become one of the league's more capable coaches when it comes to rolling with the changes.
"Over his tenure here he’s shown the ability to adapt," Chiarelli said on a Tuesday press conference regarding the Julien extension. "He has a very, very disciplined team – and that’s again a testament to his coaching. Yet at the same time his team is a very tough team, and that’s a very difficult balance to maintain and he’s been able to do that with success."
Lost in the outcry of Boston's first round exit this past spring was that there's not a more potent even-strength team than a healthy Bruins squad, and that's something that begins with the man developing the schemes, lines, and strategies. "I believe we have one of the best breaking out teams in the league - it’s like clockwork and when it’s going it’s a beauty to watch," Chiarelli said, adding, "I believe we have one of the best defensive zone coverage’s in the league. And that’s, again, a testament to him. And having said all of these defensive accomplishments, you only have to look back at our goals scored over the few years – the last few years that we have the ability to score too and to defend."
Dare we say that Julien, for all the ire he's drawn for everything from not changing the power-play to playing the fourth line too much, is one of the best in the game?
Absolutely.
As the fifth longest tenured coach in the league (Wow, that's scary to say, huh?), the Bruins have averaged over 100 points a year under Julien, have three Northeast titles to their name with him in charge, and are likely going to see him propelled into second in all-time wins by a Bruins coach by this time next season. And the good news for fans in the Hub? That's still not enough for a B's coach that knows the ever-changing landscape of this league all too well. "I look back at a guy like Scotty Bowman who lasted, even though he went through different teams as well, he lasted a long time as a great coach because he was able to adapt with the game," Julien said when asked about his longevity with the Bruins. "I’m not that narrow-minded that I don’t realize that stuff. And I continue to try and learn every time or every year that I’m out there."
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