Be sure to 'like' Hockeybuzz on Facebook!
The fate of Claude Julien, the man behind the bench as the head coach of the Boston Bruins since 2007, is a complete unknown to just about everybody. Well, except for one guy we haven’t met yet. With Boston longtime general manager Peter Chiarelli fired on Wednesday, B’s president Cam Neely and newly named CEO Charlie Jacobs confirmed that it will be Chiarelli’s successor that will determine Julien’s fate with the club.
But I’m not sure how confident Julien supporters should be given the latest report out of the Hub.
From Fluto Shinzawa of the Boston Globe:
Neely had influence before. Before the trade deadline, Neely told Chiarelli he should retain high picks instead of dealing them for rentals. Chiarelli listened. He kept the 2015 first-rounder and traded a pair of second-rounders for 22-year-old Brett Connolly.On Jan. 4, when he traveled to a road game against Carolina, Neely called several high-level players into a meeting to find answers for underperformance. Neither Chiarelli nor Julien was aware of the meeting. The Bruins landed just four shots on the net in the first period. They lost to the Hurricanes in a shootout, 2-1.
But Neely had restrictions. He didn’t have final say on personnel. He was not authorized to fire Julien earlier this season, which he wanted to do.
This is Neely’s show now. The direction of the organization is in the hands of a Hall of Fame player who was used to influencing his team’s outcome on every shift. Things don’t work that way in the front office.
So, there you have it: Neely did in fact want to can Julien at some point during this past season.
The timeframe the article references was in early Jan., when the Black and Gold were a listless group that routinely found ways to come up short against bad teams. For what it’s worth, I called that Sunday afternoon loss to the ‘Canes ‘rock bottom’ for the Bruins. (Oh, January Ty, if you only knew…)
And while Neely has reiterated that it will be the new general manager, not himself, that decides whether or not Julien remains with the Bruins for a ninth season behind the bench, you can’t help but wonder how true that notion is at this point, especially given the widely speculated belief that Neely wants more authority with his title.
“It hasn’t fully been made, and we met with Claude this morning, Charlie and I, and we told him that we really believe that once we go through the exhaustive search to find the next general manager that we will leave it up to that GM to decide what he wants to do with our coaching staff,… Neely said at Wednesday’s press conference. “Claude certainly understood that, but that’s where we left it.…
Julien, who was signed to a multi-year extension early on into the 2014-15 season, knows that his future in the Hub is entirely in the air, but doesn’t seem like somebody willing to walk away just yet.
“We told [Julien] the situation. We asked him, and he said, ‘I signed a contract to coach here; I want to coach here.’ So he made that clear when he left,… noted Neely when asked if Julien was given an option to decide his own future. “We had planned to meet with him in the next couple of days to sit down about the season and talk to him about this past season, so that’s next on our agenda with Claude.…
As I’ve said countless times, I don’t think the Bruins should fire Julien after season. Especially a season in which you missed the postseason by a mere two points. He’s established way too strong of a rapport with this team and his players to throw that out after one bad year that came after seven strong seasons. But did anything happen from January on that you believe would convince Neely that Julien should remain the voice behind the Boston bench? Probably not.
In fact, some of the things the Bruins went through en route to their collapse out of the postseason picture -- such as giving heavy minutes to guys like Gregory Campbell over guys like Pastrnak/Spooner when they needed goals -- made Julien look even more stubborn/reluctant to make the changes the B’s want to make for the future.
“Well I don’t think it matters actually,… Julien admitted when asked if he should be let go after one bad year. “I think the bottom line is it’s a tough business and right now it’s not my decision to make. It will all depend on how it’s being viewed from above me and deal with it from there. I’ve had exit interviews today with players and my job continues just like any other year. Unless I’m told otherwise I got to continue to do that. I’ve been here for eight years and I enjoy being here and certainly look forward to staying here, but again having said that I understand the nature of this business.…
Right now, you’d have to say that the favorite for the vacant GM job with the Bruins would be current assistant general manager Don Sweeney. And if he’s more or less a yes-man to Neely, and I’m not a huge fan of using that term just yet, you’d have to wonder how long of a leash they’ll give to Julien heading into his ninth season in Boston. If they give him one at all.
Ty Anderson has been covering the Boston Bruins for HockeyBuzz.com since 2010, is a member of the Pro Hockey Writers Association's Boston Chapter, and can be contacted on Twitter, or emailed at Ty.AndersonHB[at]gmail.com