Montreal Canadiens fire Michel Therrien, hire Claude Julien

Julien led the team to 32 points in 36 games as Montreal missed the playoffs.

Well, the Bruins/Canadiens rivalry just got much more interesting.

“He’s a good manager, a good man and it’s important for me to work for good people, ” he said.

The Bruins had been victim to poor shooting percentages on the year, though. Who among us wouldn’t jump at any chance to coach his or her childhood team? “Not off the ice because I have too much respect for those players”, Julien said. He ended up being replaced by Julien for the second time in his career.

The club was winning when Carey Price did well, and losing when he did poorly. Since the 2017 calendar year has started, the Canadiens have struggled under Therrien going 9-10-2 in 21 games and 3-6-1 in their last 10 games played.

For nearly every team; it’s a gamble.

“I’m convinced that in hiring Claude Julien we are getting one of the best coaches in the National Hockey League”. That those wheels hit full speed as the rival Bruins put their excellent coach out to pasture is mere coincidence, Bergevin seemed to insist. In games, fans have seen the former coach rely on his line blender as a means of correcting what is wrong; the Habs have often been a team who plays well early in a game and either sits on a lead in the third or runs out of gas. In 2008-09, Julien was the Jack Adams Trophy recipient as the NHL’s head coach of the year and, on March 7, 2016 he reached yet another milestone when he became the winningest coach in Bruins history with 388 wins.

Montreal was extremely smart in this situation. Obviously, they weren’t interested in Patrick Roy after his debacle in Colorado, and had they let Julien get hired by another team they would have had to continue to hold on to Therrien for better or worse.

As it turned out, they were right. However, things could even out if the Wild then go on to meet the Anaheim Ducks at some point in the post-season, as Minnesota bench boss Bruce Boudreau could get revenge on Anaheim for dropping him following the 2015-16 season.

The most inexplicable part, of course, is that Boston actively allowed this to happen.

Ironically, Julien was sacked under similar circumstances as those that bring him back to Montreal. Since he’s been hired, it’s clear they did so – and with no compensation headed their way anymore. “You don’t just walk away from that”, Bergevin said. All three will be seriously looked at by the new team.

Julien is moving on to the place nearly every Bruins fan didn’t want him to go. It’s the only team he’s won a Stanley Cup with (to date). Not quite yet, no. The fact that even with the bare bones of a defense in which the key player is a 39-year-old whose best days are far behind him and underperforming stars Julien had STILL found a way to win games meant nothing. The last time came in the winter of 2009 when the Pittsburgh Penguins replaced him with Dan Blysma and went on to win the Cup four months later. “Maybe the timing was – you know, Claude let go by Boston last week – but I didn’t make my decision based on how Boston operates, that’s just not how I did it, no”.

It’s an Original Six twist right out of the Boston-vs.

A lot can change in a day – and for Montreal, that’s a blessing this February in particular.