Jacob
as seen on TV
- Feb 27, 2002
- 49,540
- 25,200
People will get pissed that he uses the WBS kids alot and rolls 4 lines instead of shortening the bench at times, but I'll take that as his vice.
It may actually pay off quite a bit in the next series as Kessel and Malkin have only been averaging 17 minutes/game. They'll be plenty fresh to go up against a team that's older, slower and relies on its star players far more.
It's actually quite refreshing to see a coach - any coach - that puts *so much* trust in rookies and other young players. It's almost unheard of.
I've mentioned this before but on one of those behind-the-scenes shows on NHL Network they had a training camp meeting between Claude Julien and Chiarelli. Chiarelli was telling Julien that they were up against the cap and that he'd have to put a rookie or two (don't remember who, but they weren't fresh out of juniors, they had been in the AHL for some time) onto the big club and Chiarelli was trying to gauge Julien's interest in such an idea. Julien's response was so telling and I imagine typical of most NHL coaches: he basically spent 5 minutes rolling his eyes and moaning that he didn't want to deal with them and that it wasn't going to work.