What people need to realize about Julien is that when Gainey made a huge coup in 2004 by acquiring Kovalev, Julien proceeded to put him on the third line LW. So, your GM acquires one of the most skilled players in the league, who's spent his whole career on the RW, and Julien does that.
He cost the Bruins Tyler Seguin, who he was playing on the wing. He refused to play his younger players and his skilled guys to the point management had to fire him and proceeded to become one of the top teams in the East.
So, some posters need to understand where the skepticism about how he manages players is coming from.
By playing Thompson more than Domi when the season is critical, he's doing two things: he's cutting back valuable development time from both Domi and Kotkaniemi, all while making the team significantly weaker with the results we've been seeing. So, what happens is he does a poor job developping AND his roster management makes us miss the playoffs, but just barely. Literally the worst place a franchise can be.