Don Sweeney: Claude Julien is the Bruins coach ‘as of today’
The Bruins may have hired their new general manager on Wednesday, but questions still remain as to the future of head coach Claude Julien.
In his first press conference after being named GM, Don Sweeney would not commit to whether Julien would remain as the Bruins coach or whether the team would go in another direction.
“I’ve spoken with Claude,’’ Sweeney said. “I know it’s been reported that I had spoken to Claude as a prospective general manager candidate; that also is true. I spoke to Claude again this morning, and I spoke to him as a person now in a general manager’s seat. So I have some things that I want to sit down with Claude and go through in a very orderly fashion as to what direction we need to change as a group.
“I also acknowledged to Claude during this whole process that I think tremendously of him as a coach and as a person, so I think it’s just about lining up philosophical approaches that I believe in, that he believes in, and that we can move the group forward. As I said, some of that will involve personnel decisions. Some of that will involve staff member decisions and or changes. That’s to be determined. He’s the coach of the Boston Bruins as of today; that’s for sure.’’
Julien’s future has been in question since the Bruins’ 2014-15 season came to an end. Following a 2013-14 season in which they finished with the best record in the NHL, the Bruins tallied 96 points and missed the playoffs for the first time since 2006-07, the year before Julien was hired. The Bruins’ poor season was a factor in the team’s dismissal of former GM Peter Chiarelli.
Julien’s tenure behind the Bruins bench has been quite successful. His 351 wins puts him behind only Art Ross for the most in franchise history, while the Bruins made the playoffs each of Julien’s first seven seasons, won four division titles, two Eastern Conference championships and the 2011 Stanley Cup title, their first since 1972. Julien signed a multi-year extension with the Bruins early this past season.
Outside of Julien’s status, Sweeney did say that there would need to be a shift on the coaching staff, whether that means retooling with the coaches currently employed or bringing in new voices.
“I’m going to take the necessary time to evaluate,’’ Sweeney said when asked about changes in the coaching staff. “It will start with Claude, and we’ll dissect a little bit of the personnel pieces that he feels on teams that he’s had in the past that he’s had success with, and what we currently have, what we need to identify that could be missing — and we’ll go from there. From a staff standpoint, there’s a bit of a shift that needs to come — from our transition game, from our ability to create anxiety in other teams, because I think we, at times, had a retreat mentality.
“If you don’t create anxiety in the other team and have the ability to score goals in a time fashion or generate quality chances, then you’re going to find yourself chasing the game. And this year, we chased the game too much. We were behind in third periods, we didn’t score enough third period goals as to what we normally have in the past, and there are reasons for that. So the staff — it takes some time to evaluate the pieces that we need to get in place that can take the group forward.’’
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