Assistant/Associate Coaches

[Hoople]

I am curious. How often are assistant coaches fired in the middle of a season in the NHL? Does anyone recall any specific instances of this happening?

I know it happens fairly often in the NCAA, especially college football.

I'm wondering if Julien is willing to fall on the sword for Kirk Muller. The Habs have talented forwards. However, it appears that they are not playing a structured system on offense.

Two hallmarks of Julien's tenure in Boston.
Aggressive play on offense attacking the net.
And, net front presence, especially on the PP.

Not seeing any of that with the Habs. Is Julien just sitting back and letting Muller run the offense like he did under Therrien?

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[Treb]

You don't remember the Perry Pearn firing? Fired October 26th 2011. He was also fired by the Jets mid-season in 2013-2014.

 

[Hoople]

Forgot about Perry.

How long will the Habs hang on to Muller with an extremely underperforming offense?

Not sure why Julien didn't start with a fresh coaching staff...

 

[Adam Michaels]

You don't remember the Perry Pearn firing? Fired October 26th 2011. He was also fired by the Jets mid-season in 2013-2014.

I remember he was fired between the morning practice and the game they had that same night.

 

[WeThreeKings]

Lacroix and Daigneault should go first. They've been here the longest and have sucked immensely.

 

[Adam Michaels]

Forgot about Perry.

How long will the Habs hang on to Muller with an extremely underperforming offense?

Not sure why Julien didn't start with a fresh coaching staff...

It was a very rare instance where a new coach comes in and keeps the same guys around. I honestly thought that the only ones who would come back would be Muller and Waite. I expected JJD and Lacroix to be let go.

 

[OldCraig71]

Why didn't Julien get to choose his own assistant coaches? Bergevin said no maybe?

 

[Habsfan18]

Lacroix and Daigneault should go first. They've been here the longest and have sucked immensely.

JJD still being employed is almost as laughable as Sylvain Lefebvre still being employed.

 

[Adam Michaels]

Why didn't Julien get to choose his own assistant coaches? Bergevin said no maybe?

I get the sense it might've been the case. If that's true, MB might be a little too involved.

 

[OldCraig71]

Firing assistants at this point is like rearranging chairs on the Titanic.

 

[sandviper]

Well, easier to fire assistants than players, but JJ is the first that needs to go. Our defense can’t get the pucks to the forwards which is killing us 5v5. Don’t take my word for it, Max Pacioretty said so himself last week.

Hey, I’m all for sacking Captain Kirk also, but there is plenty of blame to go around.

 

[OnceWasNot]

Had to blame the coaches for our lack of offensive production. This forward group is made up of soft perimeter players, smurfs and floaters. The complete opposite of what Julien found success with in Boston. Nobody to win board battles and establish a cycle. Nobody is a threat to score in front of the net. It's a disaster.

 

[habsterr]

Id be willing to keep Julien, Waite and Muller, the rest needs to go. Still don't understand why Julien didn't get to pick his own assistants.

 

[mariolemieux66]

We need fresh faces from top to bottom. From the GM to the Europeen scouts.

 

[WeThreeKings]

We need fresh faces from top to bottom. From the GM to the Europeen scouts.

There needs to be more accountability on our scouts.

For example, here's Nikita Kucherov ripping up the league. So, I'm pulling the logs from all my scouts who scouted him and pulling their reports. If there's someone who identified him but was overruled, maybe I'll give them more weight in the room.

If there's people who devalued him, I'll cull more of their reports to see reports on other players that were successful we missed on. If they're constantly mis-evaluating players who become stars. Well, you're fired.

 

[mariolemieux66]

There needs to be more accountability on our scouts.

For example, here's Nikita Kucherov ripping up the league. So, I'm pulling the logs from all my scouts who scouted him and pulling their reports. If there's someone who identified him but was overruled, maybe I'll give them more weight in the room.

If there's people who devalued him, I'll cull more of their reports to see reports on other players that were successful we missed on. If they're constantly mis-evaluating players who become stars. Well, you're fired.

There hasn't been any accountability in this organization.

 

[Apoplectic Habs Fan]

Firing assistants at this point is like rearranging chairs on the Titanic.

Well its got Bergy written all over it then. Kicking deck chairs with depth players, setting the tone and holding management accountable by firing the stats guy

 

[Apoplectic Habs Fan]

I see its now Mullers fault.

The issue is MB. First off, the forwards arent overly talented especially compared to other teams. Second, Juliens Bruins were built to play his style. MBs talentless wee lads are meant to play pee wee.

This roster play more like those minor hockey teams they let play on NHL rinks at intermission. Falling all over the place, Rugby scrums. They even have the one munchkin who skates better then everyone else in Byron

 

[Hoople]

Had to blame the coaches for our lack of offensive production. This forward group is made up of soft perimeter players, smurfs and floaters. The complete opposite of what Julien found success with in Boston. Nobody to win board battles and establish a cycle. Nobody is a threat to score in front of the net. It's a disaster.

There are teams that have success with their undersized players. Tampa for one is a good example.

To be honest, the Habs offensive approach under Julien looks exactly like the Habs under Therrien. The common denominator is Muller.

What's the point of changing head coaches if the offensive coordinator is still doing the same thing?

 

[SquiddFX]

Firing assistants at this point is like rearranging chairs on the Titanic.

It's a dirty job but someone's got to do it

 

[sandviper]

There are teams that have success with their undersized players. Tampa for one is a good example.

To be honest, the Habs offensive approach under Julien looks exactly like the Habs under Therrien. The common denominator is Muller.

What's the point of changing head coaches if the offensive coordinator is still doing the same thing?

As abysmal as our offense is, it is still hard to gauge until this year is over, however, if we want to nitpick....

Muller was our PP specialist and offensive coordinator all of last year.

First 7 games 2016-2017: 26GF
First 7 games 2017-2918: 10GF

So, he was a rock star last year, but not this year to start the season

I know you’re not a fan of Muller for a while, but consider:

2016-2017 - 223GF, PP 19.57%, ABOVE the league average.
2015-2016 - 216GF, PP 16.22%, BELOW the league average.

So, based purely on stats, Muller DID do his job and improve the offense.

So really, the question is this year. There’s an article on the Athletic about how the loss of Markov and ironically, Beaulieu have a significant impact on your boy Pacioretty, as well as the team in general. Even the eye test is clear in that we’re starting a lot more of our rushes from our own zone rather than gaining speed through the neutral zone.

I am not opposed to moving on from Muller, but he isn’t the root cause. Our forwards are forced to be playing defense far too much and our defense as a group cannot give half decent passes. Also:

First 7 2016-2017: 11GA
First 7 2017-2018: 27GA

So, Muller, if we want to blame him, is clearly struggling but the defensive side just as much.

Anyhow, CJ is also the one approving strategies and line combos so he also has a hand in this.

However, end of the day, MB is the one that assembled this. Lost key players over the summer (regardless of fault) and did not bring in enough. He gambled on the wrong pieces, going back to TDL last year. Hard to pin Muller as the common denominator if you’re changing the equation itself by removing keys like Markov and Radulov. Drouin is special, but he doesn’t replace two key offensive players.

 

[Habs Halifax]

Why didn't Julien get to choose his own assistant coaches? Bergevin said no maybe?

I think Julien was the won who said he will review the assistant coaches at the end of the season and then decided to bring them back. I just can't see Bergevin getting involved too much with this.

 

[Habs]

I thought Muller would have taught someone how to win a draw by this point, and JJD shouldn't be close to any blueline

 

[OldCraig71]

I thought Muller would have taught someone how to win a draw by this point, and JJD shouldn't be close to any blueline

Captain Kirk gets a big pass here because he is captain Kirk but he aint lightin it up in his department either.

 

[Devourers]

There are teams that have success with their undersized players. Tampa for one is a good example.

To be honest, the Habs offensive approach under Julien looks exactly like the Habs under Therrien. The common denominator is Muller.

What's the point of changing head coaches if the offensive coordinator is still doing the same thing?

I can see why you would see that but I disagree. Therrien had d-men who could move the puck up ice in Markov, Beaulieu and even to some extent Emelin. That helps immensely for a team like ours who tries to score a lot of the time off the rush rather than continued pressure in the offensive zone.

Fast forward to this year Julien's first season with the Habs where he gets to start off and instill his system, MB guts the d corps and the only guy capable of moving the puck with relative consistency is a 19yr old rookie former 4th round pick who is still learning the NHL game.

You want to blame somebody for the teams performance it isn't the coaching, and as much as I think Lacroix and JJD should be fired, they should've been fired 3 years ago not suddenly now. The blame falls squarely on the general manager. He has no vision for building a contender, thinks you can just replace solid puck-moving d-men with Alzner, Schelmko, etc. He traded Beaulieu in order to protect Benn, played hardball with Markov when he was desperately needed and traded away a future top pairing puck moving d-man. He gutted our entire d-corps.