2/10/17: Claude’s Gone; Cassidy Brings New Direction to Hibernating Bruins
The Bruins beat San Jose, 6–3 last night in their first game with Bruce Cassidy behind the bench, their first in ten seasons to be coached by someone other than Claude Julien. The power play produced two scores, both by David Pastrnak, and Patrice Bergeron was involved on four goals, his highest single-game point total of the season. Even David Backes got on the board. It was a good night in a season of way too many painful ones.
The reaction to the Bruins’ firing of their longtime coach Tuesday featured near-unanimous criticism of the organization for sacking their head man the morning of a Super Bowl parade and for holding the press conference during it. But a vocal majority also questioned the wisdom of the move itself.
I won’t defend the Benny Hill quality to the timing of the move or the speaking performances of Don Sweeney and Cam Neely in the days following it, but with regard to the actual decision, it was long overdue. While Julien was a nice guy with a Stanley Cup and the most wins in franchise history to his name, the Bruins were stuck in the mud with Claude refusing to call a tow truck, just shifting between “drive” and “reverse” over and over, muck flying everywhere. Cassidy’s first game isn’t proof that all is suddenly well on Causeway Street, but it is perhaps an indication of a much-needed reboot.
Peter Chiarelli made a series of stupid post-Cup moves here and couldn’t draft for shit, and now he’s gone, his name a cuss word to Bruins fans. Sweeney and Neely continue to get trashed for their inability to right the ship. Julien’s ouster somehow produced a widespread outcry. Given his team’s performance over the past half-decade, I actually saw it as a relief, perhaps an opportunity.
It was unacceptable for the defending champions to exit in the first round of the 2012 Stanley Cup playoffs.
It was a major disappointment for a Presidents Trophy-winning squad to bow out in the conference semifinals in 2014.
It was inconceivable for the team to completely whiff on the postseason in 2015. We talk about how thin the roster is now; that unit missed the playoffs with Lucic, Eriksson and Hamilton.
And while Sweeney shook up the roster prior to last year, it was still sobering to see the B’s, who should have been one of the top five teams in hockey for a decade, among the also-rans last year. They’ve now advanced past the first round of the playoffs just twice in the past five seasons, and are in danger of missing the postseason in three consecutive campaigns for the first time since Bobby Orr was a teenager.
I conveniently left out an appearance in the 2013 Cup Finals in the previous paragraphs. Even that run was accompanied by whispers of Claude getting canned, with his team taking a nap against James Reimer You Bum and the Maple Leafs in the first round.
Yes, only three other coaches (Quenneville, Sutter and Babcock) have taken the same team to the Finals twice in the last decade. But the Penguins have done it with three different coaches (Therrien, Bylsma, and Sullivan) and one coach (Vigneault) has done it with two different teams. So why did the Bruins hang on to Julien for so long?
The same issues that plagued his teams when they were good, remained, only now the bottom half of the roster is full of Brooklyn Brawlers and Barry Horowitzes and the defense is porous to boot. Lovers of bad hockey often cited possession metrics to defend him, but Corsi means jack when you don’t take good shots. The Bruins were 21st in the NHL during Julien’s tenure in shooting percentage, something the pro-Julien crowd chalked up to everything from bad personnel to “puck luck.”
But what explains Pastrnak going on a 17-game scoring drought this year, firing one-timers and only one-timers for weeks on end, like a real-life version of NHL ’94? What explains the roster finishing in the bottom half of the league in shooting percentage with players like Kessel, Seguin and Iginla wearing the spoked B? How about formerly capable offensive talents coming to Boston and seeing their numbers fall off a cliff, time after time?
The Bruins are 25th in the league in shots from the slot this year, an illustration of just how inept Julien’s system was as it evolved from dump and chase and back again. All the possession metrics in the world can’t get the Bruins quality shots on goal. Again, this isn’t new. You may recall 41-year old Dwayne freaking Roloson looking like Ken Dryden against the black and gold, much less Braden Holtby or Carey Price. And there was always an excuse: injuries, a hot goalie, puck luck. Under Claude, we accepted the concept of a “scheduled loss.”
And that’s what made the 2011 team great — not only did they win the Cup, they performed despite Marc Savard and Nathan Horton being out of action. No excuses. Play like a champion. For the first time in 39 years, they did.
The current iteration of the Bruins isn’t going anywhere. David Krejci has been living off past exploits at $7.25 million. He and Backes got torched by Neely yesterday. Zdeno Chara is 39 and basically a home appliance on skates, but he has value on the penalty kill and that may entice another GM if Sweeney wants to go there. While Neely says doesn’t want to part with established veterans, the recipe here calls for moving some, keeping others, and continuing to bring the young guys along. It’s up to him and Sweeney to find the proper ingredients. And Cassidy might be one. We’ll see.
To suggest firing Julien improves the team’s chances of making the playoffs in 2017 is shortsighted. Much like in the mid-90’s, when the team clung for dear life to the longest postseason appearance streak in sports, a few playoff home dates are a silly goal. Can Cassidy get them there? Maybe, maybe not, but if he can reanimate the atrophied muscles of the Bruins offense with a new system, he has my support. Any new direction, even if “down” for a period of time, is better than being stuck in a ditch.
This post was originally published to macandgu.com on February 10, 2017.
