Speculation: Claude Julien Hired, What Now?

[PaulD]

You're right on the relative value of SV% to assess one game.
But Individual games tend to be quite irrelevant as the sample size gets larger.
And a cursory look at Brodeur's SV% seriously throws a wrench in your theory, considering he had one of his best SV% seasons when his blueline was the following : Rafalski (never great defensively to begin with...),. Martin, Lukowich, Oduya, White and David ****ing Hale.

Actually, on pure SV% and GSAA, his best SEASONS relative to the reminder of the league were with that kind of D. When he was 34 and 35.

OK So Marty and the Devils a bad example. Thanks.

But you did get the point.

 

[CupInSIX]

Your new user name.....

Somehow it makes it all worth it. I think there's a part of Therrien in all of us, grinding away from birth.

 

[nhlfan9191]

Granted I only watch B's/Habs games so not a large sample size but Galchenyuk doesn't seem to be a 3-zone player. High offensive talent . He is going to see much less ice-time if Claude holds true to form. The big winner here will be Carey Price. Expect to see a lot more shutouts and low scoring boring games. Rask was a big beneficiary of Claude's game-plans. Good luck to you guys. Julien lost the locker room here three years ago, damn shame it took this long to make the change. He will get you a cup in this contract because of Price, guaranteed. It will however not be very enjoyable to watch.

Not fun to watch? That Boston/Vancouver series was one of the best I've seen in two decades. Not to mention the Tampa and series Boston had against us that year were very exciting.

 

[1UP]

IMO people forget way too fast. I'm not a fan of Julien. He always whine. Can't stand the guy.

But people imo forgot about his first time here.

1) He was a coach here for one full year only. His team made the playoffs and reached the 2nd round despite having a bottom 10 lineup.
2) He did not make much change when he was named in the middle of the season but the year after he quickly tossed some vets like Pererault and Dackell and gave Ribeiro and Ryder their chance. Ribeiro and Ryder did very well and from what i can remember it was a good season.
3) Under Julien Souray became a way better dman than he ever was before.
4) He was fired after a bad start where Theodore could not stop a beach ball. Huet saved the season for Gainey afterward.

I remember #4 a bit differently.

Julien started playing Huet a lot more since Théodore couldn't stop anything. That didn't suit well with Gainey who saw Théodore as a franchise player still, and that, with other issues considering the direction Julien wanted the team to take lead to Gainey canning Julien.

Then, Gainey got behind the bench, played Théodore a few games in a row, including an extraordinarily putrid outing against Carolina... aaaaaand then it was Huet all the way.

(I dug up the boxscore! http://www.hockey-reference.com/boxscores/200601230CAR.html)

Julien ended up vindicated. 110% had quite a field day with that one.

 

[OldCraig71]

It is now on the players, not Bergevin nor Therrien or ownership and this is often one of the greatest benefits to bringing in a new coach. There is no room for complacency now, the "we have to be better" comments have to turn to action because there is nowhere to hide.

Some good players in this league that have played for Claude have given him a ton of credit for their development and that is certainly a positive. I am interested to see what happens to Beau, chucky, Pateryn and big mac because lets be honest, they were not getting the benefit of the doubt from our old coach. It is the first time in years that I am looking forward to watching this team.

 

[MXD]

OK So Marty and the Devils a bad example. Thanks.

But you did get the point.

But one point you might have missed, and is quite funny in the circumstances :
Who was the Devils Head Coach in 06-07?

 

[Lafleurs Guy]

So the solution to "MT is never accountable" is "CP is never accountable".

That... Well, with regards, it's counter-productive.

A couple of things here:

First, Price bounced back for a bit and we still struggled to win games. Secondly, Prices' 5 on 5 numbers are excellent. Our PK numbers absolutely suck. And third, he's earned the benefit of the doubt after years of great play.

On the flipside, MT should've been canned years ago. He relied on Price to a ridiculous extent for a long time to keep his job. He went through this already last year.

One guy has earned a lot more rope than the other.

Still wondering if Plekanec wasn't the one suffering the most from Therrien's coaching. We'll see.
As for DD...he's not part of the plan going forward but who knows, we knew that DD in Therrien's system was toxic, maybe if used differently we never know, just highly doubtful.

And i now every coach has those weird decision and in the league today, we talk about having a top 9 more than a top 6 these days but i just expect Julien to have a different bench management.

For a goaltender, 8 starts = 3 weeks of works.
During that really bad stretch, between Jan.16th and Feb. 5th...

Carey Price: 92.4%

That's very good goaltending, wouldn't you agree? Not super Price, but good.
But on the records it translated to: 2 wins in 8 games (2-5-1)

Can't sit there and put it all on Price like the french medias are doing....he put up a good stretch and without him carrying the team, this team wasn't going anywhere. It's been true for the last 3 years.

Yup, he bounced back for a while. Not super Carey numbers but .924 is great.

As for Plekanec bouncing back... now that would be one hell of a magic trick. He looks finished to me. Would love to see if Clode can get something from him though.

See... I can't disagree with this either.

On the other hand, every coach who receive goaltending around .900 is gonna get canned sooner or later, because .900 USUALLY leads to losses, unless you're coaching the Dallas Stars to an unsustainable shooting percentage... And even then, you're just getting canned the following year.

Sub .900 usually leads to losses sure but bad penalty killing leads to low save percentages. And Price wasn't sub .900 every night. There was an incredible amount of pressure put on Price to be perfect. Six out of seven games with two goals or less and we were shut out three times? How many games can you expect to win from that? In three of them you have NO chance of winning at all. In the others you're putting tons of pressure on your goalie to win the game.

Price was able to do this for years and now he can't. You can't just point to the goalie when he struggles and ignore the offense. MT is accountable for the coaching side of things. He got fired and he deserved it. If Carey Price spends the next few years as a sub .900 save percentage goalie then he'll find himself out of a job too. But I don't see that happening.

 

[Chili]

Part of Bergevin's platform when he was hired was 'building through the draft'.

They haven't been doing that much with only a couple of players added to the NHL roster during his time.

And yesterday he admitted they have 'less then five' top prospects.

I'll be interested to see if they make any drafting/development changes this summer.

 

[yianik]

Part of Bergevin's platform when he was hired was 'building through the draft'.

They haven't been doing that much with only a couple of players added to the NHL roster during his time.

And yesterday he admitted they have 'less then five' top prospects.

I'll be interested to see if they make any drafting/development changes this summer.

When MT came in we had pretty much 0 by way of prospects given the disaster that was the 2008-11 drafts. Call it having too few higher picks as BG traded them away, or TT returning to the average ( I think both ), the cup board was quite empty. So really nothing to build on.

MB has walked the walk. He has traded away picks, but traded for picks. He has given TT a full compliment of selections overall. The players we drafted we hung onto up until we had a very good idea of what they could do and what they were worth ( as compared to say Houle who got rid of the few good prospects we had for nothing and saw prosper elsewhere ).

I have seen analysis done that show TT is one of the best in picking players relative to where we draft. More top end guys would be good. Lehkonen cpould be a recent one of those.

We are just now building up a pool of good prospects, who I would identify as Sergachev, McCarron, Juulsen, Scherbak McNiven and free agent Lindgren.

In terms of drafting it is clear to me that we should just take players we think have top 6 potential at forward, or top 4D, especially in the first few rounds.. Bottom players are always available and we seem able to get pretty good ones for cheap. No point wasting picks on guys like that.

There could be an issue in terms of developing players. Tinordi was probably a bad pick , but many fans on this site question how he was developed. Who knows ?

Drafting and development always need to be looked at constantly by the GM.

 

[tazsub3]

having learned that permission to speak to gallant was requested, it was interesting that the habs considered a non francophone coach.

 

[CupInSIX]

When MT came in we had pretty much 0 by way of prospects given the disaster that was the 2008-11 drafts. Call it having too few higher picks as BG traded them away, or TT returning to the average ( I think both ), the cup board was quite empty. So really nothing to build on.

MB has walked the walk. He has traded away picks, but traded for picks. He has given TT a full compliment of selections overall. The players we drafted we hung onto up until we had a very good idea of what they could do and what they were worth ( as compared to say Houle who got rid of the few good prospects we had for nothing and saw prosper elsewhere ).

I have seen analysis done that show TT is one of the best in picking players relative to where we draft. More top end guys would be good. Lehkonen cpould be a recent one of those.

We are just now building up a pool of good prospects, who I would identify as Sergachev, McCarron, Juulsen, Scherbak McNiven and free agent Lindgren.

In terms of drafting it is clear to me that we should just take players we think have top 6 potential at forward, or top 4D, especially in the first few rounds.. Bottom players are always available and we seem able to get pretty good ones for cheap. No point wasting picks on guys like that.

There could be an issue in terms of developing players. Tinordi was probably a bad pick , but many fans on this site question how he was developed. Who knows ?

Drafting and development always need to be looked at constantly by the GM.

0 prospects? They had Beaulieu, Gallagher, Tinordi and Leblanc. And have you seen what's been going on with the farm club the past 3 years?

 

[TennisMenace]

Part of Bergevin's platform when he was hired was 'building through the draft'.

They haven't been doing that much with only a couple of players added to the NHL roster during his time.

And yesterday he admitted they have 'less then five' top prospects.

I'll be interested to see if they make any drafting/development changes this summer.

Bingo! I know we like to think the guys running this know what they are doing, but they don't. The proof is in the pudding! Too Many of Our draft choices are usually failures. We need new eyes watching.

 

[Team_Spirit]

Part of Bergevin's platform when he was hired was 'building through the draft'.

They haven't been doing that much with only a couple of players added to the NHL roster during his time.

And yesterday he admitted they have 'less then five' top prospects.

I'll be interested to see if they make any drafting/development changes this summer.

Timmins must feel the heat.

I'm still not over the Fischer pick. LOL

 

[yianik]

0 prospects? They had Beaulieu, Gallagher, Tinordi and Leblanc. And have you seen what's been going on with the farm club the past 3 years?

My fault. Gallagher made the team that season. Beaulieu is one player. As to the others you mention I mean yes we always have prospects , we have 50 contracts we fill, but in terms of NHL players. Beaulieu and Gallagher is about all we got out of those drafts, that is brutal. So yes, it is always in hindsight, the cupboard was empty.

 

[Adam Michaels]

having learned that permission to speak to gallant was requested, it was interesting that the habs considered a non francophone coach.

Exactly why I'm confident to know that they went to look for the best candidate possible, language barrier be damned. And while I am a fan of Gallant, I think Julien was indeed the best coach on the market. Being a Francophone is bonus.

Now in all fairness, it could have been Bergevin looking to Gallant as an assistant. But I personally doubt that.

 

[1909]

Timmins must feel the heat.

I'm still not over the Fischer pick. LOL

Or the McCarron or Scherbak's picks.... DLR ??? Fucale ????

 

[CanadienShark]

I think Beaulieu breaks out under Julien. He'll develop into a great #3 or an good #2.

 

[Rapala]

I think Beaulieu breaks out under Julien. He'll develop into a great #3 or an good #2.

He's already playing much better than he gets credit for around here.

 

[scrubadam]

Timmins must feel the heat.

I'm still not over the Fischer pick. LOL

Well the TT debate has gone in circles over and over again in TT's thread.

But time is running out on his latest drafts. 12 outside of 3rd OVA is looking very busty. 13 the same. Maybe Mac becomes a 4th liner at best. Lek is a good one though. 14 well Scherback has the skillz but I don't know if they will ever lead to a pro career. 15 I bet Julsen needs another 3 to 5 years to even establish himself on a bottom pairing. Beau was taken in 2011 and its 2017 and we still aren't sure what he is. Brings the team to 16 with Sergachev. Hopes are high and he is a top 10 draft pick. I think he has a good chance but everyone thought Beau (again) was Markov lite and Tinordi was Chara lite. You can't judge 18 year olds playing against other kids who 99% of them won't play professional hockey.

As they say in the TT thread he had good drafts in 2007 and before and its not his fault. Lets just keep waiting. Whats another bad 5 drafts anyways ? We don't have to worry about those till 10 years from now anyways.

I bet 08-11 if you read this board habs drafted the best players, we had amazing prospects and every player we drafted was going to be a huge homerun.

 

[deandebean]

I'm happy to see older posters coming back. At least for now.

 

[1909]

He's already playing much better than he gets credit for around here.

If he could cut on his off ice curriculum activities, he would be better, and steadier.

 

[deandebean]

If he could cut on his off ice curriculum activities, he would be better, and steadier.

Speculation much?

 

[1909]

Speculation much?

Everyone in Montreal knows that.

 

[Rapala]

Speculation much?

That damned Birthday Party video.

 

[The Great Weal]

I think Beaulieu breaks out under Julien. He'll develop into a great #3 or an good #2.

Could you imagine if he turns into a Torey Krug