Photo Credit: NHL.com
The Montreal Canadiens have been sputtering for months now, and as a result, Michel Therrien came under a lot of fire. On Tuesday afternoon, he lost his job, and the Canadiens hired Claude Julien. Yes, the same Claude Julien who was fired just a week ago…by the Boston Bruins. What?
The Boston side of this was inevitable. Julien had been rumored to be out of a job for the better part of the last year. His message had gone stale with the locker room. The core of Brad Marchand, Patrice Bergeron and Zdeno Chara have probably overstayed their welcome in Boston.
This team has been running on fumes, compared to the great teams of the early 2010s, and maybe the best thing for them is a huge reboot. However, this regime has been reluctant of that, shown by adding veterans every summer and relying on Chara to be a player that he no longer is.
On the other hand, this is a great move for Montreal.
Julien’s teams are successful when they buy into his defensive system, and this Canadiens team has the talent on the back end to be just as good as those early decade Boston teams – imagine Shea Weber in Chara’s role on this Montreal team.
Carey Price has had a down year by his standards, but maybe with this system, he can live up to his reputation as a top goalie in this league. The Alex Galchenyuk situation will have to be figured out by management, whether they will deal him or not, but this team will be in the playoffs. They are the best team in the Atlantic, which doesn’t say much, considering the division.
However if this team buys in, Montreal has the talent under Julien to be a favorite come April.