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Believe it or not, Bruins head coach Claude Julien has not lost his locker room.
Even in a month that’s come with eight losses in 12 games, including a four-game slide that likely would have hit five had it not been for the late-game theatrics of the B’s top best wingers (Brad Marchand scored the game-tying goal and David Pastrnak scored the overtime game-winner). Still, it was another night in which the Black and Gold dominated the puck, with 49 shots put on Red Wings netminder Jared Coreau, and just 26 allowed at the other end of the rink.
The Bruins have routinely doubled their opponent up in shots, too. But the pucks have gone every which way but in the net this season, and their breakdowns almost always result in a goal against, something that will likely remain the case with more wear and tear on the all-world Tuukka Rask.
What does it mean? It means that the system works just fine, but that the execution is off. In other words, firing Julien is not going to magically make the Bruins score more goals. It’s not going to make the Bruins remember that there’s usually five guys on the other team on the ice at once.
That hasn’t stopped the rumors from swirling. Rumors that Julien knows he can’t avoid all year.
“To be honest with you guys, my job is [to] coach a hockey club. Am I worried about my job? No I’m not, because it’s not my job to worry about it,” Julien said in an impassioned answer to the media last weekend when asked about his future. “My job is to fix things. I think my job is to coach this team and try to do everything I can. And if I become one of the reasons that we’re not doing well, well then I think management has to make that decision. It’s not my decision to make.”
Looking at it from a philosophical standpoint (which, by the way, is never a good idea in the realm of professional sports, especially in a time of hot takery), it’s weird that you have to tell the grown men that they need a new slightly older grown man to get them to do their jobs the right way.
“We’re professionals and we’re here to win hockey games,” B’s center Patrice Bergeron, who is on pace for the worst offensive season of his career, said. “I’ve been with Claude for 10 years, and he’s the guy I believe in and that I want to play for and [rumors] aren’t going to change my view on that.”
“Claude is our coach and he will be our coach,” Bruins captain Zdeno Chara said.
“We have confidence in him. He’s proven to be a coach that has done lot of good things for this organization. We just gotta keep up with some wins, and we’re all in this together.”
Bergeron and Chara are the two biggest voices in that locker room. And they’ve been through it all with Julien. It would be easy to chalk this one up as to each player saying the right thing to the media, but you get the feeling talking to them -- and other players, both on and off the record -- that this is a team that truly believes in the message that Julien, who has had to do more teaching than coaching this year with eight different players making their NHL debuts for the club this season, is preaching.
“Those things stay internal. And I’m sure you understand and respect that,” Chara said. “[But] there is no person, one player, or one coach that is not buying into it. We’re all trying to make it better.”
And these days like the ones where the Bruins pummel pucks and hang with the Penguins for 40 minutes before the pure skill of the Pens takes over, were to be expected from the decade-long coach.
“I’m willing to go through the hard times, and I said that at the end of last year,” Julien, who has frequently mentioned that this team has to work hard to make up for talent deficiencies they undoubtedly have when matched up against the league’s best, said. If it’s deemed my fault, then I shouldn’t be here. That’s all I can say. But that’s not my decision to make. And if we’re going with what we said we’d go with and saying there’s going to be some growing pains along the way, so be it.
“I’m not quitting on this team, I’m not quitting on management.”
So Julien isn’t taking the easy way out. His players don’t appear interested in that route either.
But there is one alarming issue with all of this, and that’s the silence from the B’s front office. Neither team president Cam Neely or second-year general manager Don Sweeney have held court with the media to address these rumors. In fact, they haven’t talked to the media as a whole since before the season started. Instead, with their silence, they’ve let rumors fester, grow, and/or then evaporate.
(It’s a bold strategy, Cotton, let’s see if it pays off for ‘em.)
Keeping the media in the dark is one thing. I get it. I actually think it’s fair that Sweeney often chooses not to publicly comment on trade discussions and/or contract negotiations. The closest he came is when he rebuked Blues GM Doug Armstrong for his insane asking price for Kevin Shattenkirk back at the 2016 NHL Draft (Armstrong wanted David Pastrnak and both first-round picks, which was just dumb).But in certain situations, squashing a rumor or report can do wonders for a team’s mindset. And hey, maybe for all we know there was a situation where Sweeney or Neely came into the B’s dressing room and gave Julien a vote of confidence and that this whole thing is just made up.
But if their silence to the media has also been silence to their coach and players, well that’s ugly.
Left to assume and ask around, the belief is that there are two camps in the B’s front office. One appears to think that it’s time to part ways with Julien and begin a new chapter, while the other believes that this situation would be a lot worse without a coach as good as Julien. Again, without any sort of direction hinted at by this silent front office, both ideologies are pure speculation at this point.
Regardless of your feeling as to Julien’s share of blame in this season-long war of attrition, one thing remains clear: This is not the way to treat your franchise’s all-time winningest coach. To leave Julien -- and his players, for that matter -- twisting in the wind and without a definitive direction or squashing of rumors that Julien has by all done his job of putting to bed is as wrong as it is dumb.
“As far as rumors are concerned, they’re out there. I know that,” Julien said. “But I don’t worry about it, because worrying is wasting a lot of my time and my time is about trying to fix things here.”
Something he could focus on fixing even more if the Black and Gold's front office said something.
Anything.
Ty Anderson is the Boston Bruins beat writer for WEEI.com, and has been covering the National Hockey League for HockeyBuzz.com since 2010. He can be heard on the Saturday Skate program on 93.7 WEEI (Boston), can also be found in the New England Hockey Journal magazine, and has been part of the Boston Chapter of the PHWA since 2013. Contact him on Twitter or send him an email at Ty.AndersonHB[at]gmail.com.
Boston Bruins Blogger •Bruins Feature Columnist • 
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