Stirring The Habs-Bruins Rivalry

If you follow my thoughts from day to day, you will note my total revulsion for all things coming from the hockey curiosity south of Montreal that is Boston.

To describe Bruins fans as arrogant would be a dis-service to arrogant people all over. So as a public service to all of you I attempt to keep an eye on the Boston media and expose you to stories of their pin-wheel dreams gone berserk.

In July, I found a new thorn in my side in James Murphy of Murphy's Law. Back then he was writing about how the suddenly useful Bruins would undoubtedly conquer all opponents this year in an 82-game synopsis that makes a Halak for Lecavalier and Hedman trade look like good sense talking. With the subtlety of a hammer and the insight of a constipated gnat, Murphy irritated me then.

Well, never one to lie down on the job, James has produced another piece to rile the rah-rah masses of Beantown, with some directed jabs at rivals like us (I'd never do such a thing). So again, for my piece of mind and your amusement, I share with you his piece: Bruins Show Claude Julien the Faith He Always Deserved

Now look, I don't disagree with offering a contract extension to the coach who just won the conference and the Jack Adams trophy. But do we really need to pretend that Julien is the first coach to win those plaudits? Nor would he be the first Adams trophy defender and once-can't-do-no-wrong coach to get fired if things go wrong for him – despite said extension.

The thing that riled me up is the length at which Mr. Murphy criticises the Canadiens organization for their mistreatment of Claude Julien – once again insinuating that he was somehow mistreated in his firing.

It's a myth.

Murphy provides me the ammunition himself:

The Canadiens got off to a strong 12-3 start under Julien that season, before winning just seven of their next 25 games.

7 wins in 25 games!?! That's horrible enough. If you remember the time well, you'll recall there were other issues like the Theodore saga, as well as some other problems with ice time and employing the right players. Montreal fans had been baying for Julien's head for some time without hesitation, simply because he was a rookie coach going wrong. His solutions weren't well thought out. His AHL experiences weren't translating to the NHL for him.

When you consider that Claude had only been allowed to stay on after Bob Gainey's hiring on a temporary basis to begin with and you can see that.

The team was faltering. Players were faltering. Julien, on extended job interview, was not doing great in Montreal – not when you consider the expectations post-lockout were high. His firing was a very run-of-the-mill NHL firing – one employed to give a boost to the team in question – nothing more. No raw deal here.


Julien's other raw deal

For me, Claude Julien's other raw deal is the more telling. As Murphy reminds us, Claude was fired again on April 3, 2007, with his team 47-24-8, holding onto first place in the Atlantic Division and second in the Eastern Conference.

At the time, this was a first for me. This was a winning coach during a winning patch. It seemed to defy logic.

Defy logic, indeed. But was it a raw deal?

Well, that certainly depends on your outlook. While players are quick to hide behind bad coaching when things go bad, so too coach apologists prefer to blame sour culture and bad play throughout. Interesting then that this firing left no one anywhere to hide. All it was was a GM reviewing the performance of his employee and deeming that it was not up to scratch. Is that unfair?

Lamoriello told the Canadian Press, "I did not feel that we were going in the right direction, both mentally and hockey(-wise), going into the playoffs, for a variety of reasons." He went on to say that we were not privy to the inner realities of the club.

It is if you think that a GM should only use a single season of experience in making judgments. But, if you allow a manager with Lamoriello's resume to draw on a longer period of observation, then it gets blurrier. After all, if Lou Lamoriello deems that his team will fail with Julien at the helm in the first playoff hurdle, who am I to say he was wrong? Indeed who is Peter Chiarelli?



Bruins immune to a fall?

I think I've made it clear that I side with Gainey and Lamoriello on their decisions of the past. I see 2 experienced GMs making 2 hard choices to release a coach with lots of long-term potential, but in each instance what they deemed to be too little immediate pay-out.

Murphy sees it differently – he calls each move a raw deal. He would have seen Julien last longer in each position, I suppose.

When it comes to the Canadiens of 2005-06, he prefers to blame the entire roster, even the wider organization:

But if you ask most players from that Canadiens squad -- or any players who played under Julien -- the team’s struggles were more a result of the players on the roster and the culture that dominated the Habs’ dressing room for the next three seasons.

I think I could go on about this, but I don't think it necessary. Only to remind the Bruins again that they are not the first team to lead the conference in points. Perhaps they might check the last page of their history book.

To think the Bruins are immune to a fall from grace is to ignore the lessons that have unrolled in their very own division over the past two years. Indeed, it is to ignore what has happened in Julien's and many another coach's career as well.

I'm sure we all wish the best for Claude Julien the minute he moves on from the Bruins, but until then I know I can count on many of you to join me in toasting the Bruins this autumn:

"Here's to their fall."

Canadiens Must Not Allow Bruins To Paint Themselves Victims

The Boston Bruins are in the process of taking a large page from John Stevens' ultra-successful contra-Canadiens playoff strategy book:

Play on the feeling that the league may just favour the Canadiens

After all, how else did this team win so many Cups? How did they scout and recruit better than everyone else for 30 years? Why did French Canadian stars want to play for this team exclusively?

The current rendition of the story has the league and their henchmen (that'd be the refs) turning a blind eye to the despicable and dangerous play form the dirty dirty Canadiens (or Europeans, if you prefer the xenophobic take).

As a ploy from the opposition coach, it is top notch. In theory, at its best it can distract the refs and make them see every Canadiens tumble as a dive. In practice, it seems to have done just that so far.

After all, how do we come out of a game where the Canadiens were assessed 5 of the discretionary penalties (I classify high-sticking as non-discretionary) to the Bruins zero with the Boston coach ranting about how his team has been cheated and treated unfairly?

There is no doubt that Sergei Kostitsyn, Glen Metropolit, Alex Tanguay and Kovalev all hooked, but as was pointed out in the broadcast, many of the calls were recognising plays that had just happened 50 times over in the preceding minutes. Even if the Canadiens were guilty of two thirds of the offenses, their rate of penalization was still disproportional.

The rate of penalty calls was also out of balance in Game #1, where we were all a bit perplexed to see the 47th crosscheck of the game called mid-way through the third period of a pivotal tie hockey game. And Plekanec was certainly the only player called for stick touching opponent's hip.


What should the response be?

This is much tougher than it seems. The Canadiens cannot simply stop taking penalties. They cannot stop hooking or interfering either quite simply because the vast majority of that stuff is not called and so not doing it would put them at a competitive disadvantage.

No, what I think they must do is meet the Bruins at their level. Feel a crosscheck in your back, go down. Player through the crease, flop out. Not quite getting around the player in the corner, go to the ice. If diving is a new standard of play, we should not be left behind. After all, the worst that happens when you dive is no call, or worse a coincidental minor?!?

It's not the high standard the ambassadors of the teams discuss with youngsters in schools, but desperate times call for desperate measures, eh? Besides, teams of the 60s and 70s couldn't have won so much without a little flex in their interpretation of the rules.


In addition, I feel someone from the organisation needs to meet Claude Julien head on and address the media in the following way:

"We feel that Milan Lucic got the suspension he deserved, because intentional or not sticks to the head need to be removed from the game. We also feel that it is insulting to have to listen to the coach of a team that enjoyed all the powerplays of the previous game insinuate that we are being favoured."

All of this nonsense comes out of the very gray area the league has left itself in with regard to calling penalties int he playoffs. In some circles, there is an understanding (nudge, nudge, wink, wink) that the rules from the season are put away from now on. And on certain nights, that seems to be the case.

Obviously, the league needs to be more consistent. I see only two ways to do that: 1) call everything, or 2) call nothing. All this in between leaves no one satisfied and more than a few with a sour taste in their mouths.


Anyway, here's to a better spectacle this evening. Go Habs Go.

Sharks Reinstate Claude LemieuxWilson: "Thinking How To Mess Up The Season Is Hard"

Thinking of ways to keep people interested while winning streaks drag on is the burden of the San Jose Sharks. Unaccustomed to actually starting well as finishing well, the Sharks have found their minds wandering to keep themselves occupied. Their most recent move cannot be described any other way:

The NHL-leading Sharks recalled the four-time Cup winner Monday from their minor league affiliate in Worcester, Mass. Lemieux practiced in San Jose, and he's likely to play Tuesday night against Vancouver in the Sharks' final game before the All-Star break.

Claude Lemieux should add an interesting piece to an already interesting team – one that already has two elite centres and Jeremy Roenick.

But is there anything beyond an interesting story here? Can Claude Lemieux help this team be better – in the playoffs that is.

One would have to think that was Doug Wilson's actual logic. But can we really attribute logic to a man who invites a 43-year-old, 5.5 years into retirement, to come back and play for his stacked team? Can we really say that Doug Wilson is doing anything other than rolling the dice? After all, he built a team he hopes will win the Cup around Joe Thornton (not to mention Patrick Marleau).

I get the thinking too:

My players = All chokers
Claude Lemieux = Has always found ways to win (even Conn Smythes!)

Despite that, in my humble opinion, Claude Lemieux will not help the Sharks. You can't expect a reclamation project like him to come in and turn a team's stomachs around. Nor could you expect him to fare very well in the new faster NHL. He didn't help Phoenix at the end of his real playing days, did he? His effectiveness was spent more than 9 years ago.

If anything, with Thornton and Roenick already crowding the dressing room; I think he's a personality too far. What's more, some poor youngster who could be learning the ways of winning will now be relegated back down so Claude can exorcise his whim.

I wish Claude all the best, but I'm infinitely glad we didn't sign him. Normally, I'm the first to criticise Bob Gainey for canny manouevres he missed out on. But this is not a canny manoeuvre in my book, and I wholeheartedly disagree with JT's fanciful take on the matter:

If Gainey passed over Lemieux without at least considering making him an offer, I worry the Habs GM is too conservative or unimaginative to give his team a leg up on the other teams scrabbling to be the best...

And, what is it about the late 80s Habs that just won't retire. Chelios, Richer and his repeated attempts at comebacks and now this. If Larry Robinson wants back in, we have a gaping place open for him at 6th defenceman...

Halak shoulld start; Lemieux should sit

Tomorrow's game is against the (once and still) Mighty Red Wings.

Want a change to the way things have been going? How about starting a goalie that has never lost at the Bell Centre...

No not Brodeur, Jaroslav Halak.


In 7 starts at the Bell Centre (or Molson Centre if you're the editor of Yahoo), Halak has won every time out. He also has 2 shutouts on top of everything else. His stats in Montreal are sensational in fact (see here).

In other news, the Canadiens feel they need to prolong a Tuesday game by honouring the rivalry with the 81-year Red Wings. Apart from the timing being completely strange (will we do this every time a square number comes around?), the ceremony stands to be very strange. According to Habs Inside/Out:

The Red Wings are expected to be represented by legends Gordie Howe, Ted Lindsay, Alex Delvecchio, Marcel Pronovost and Marcel Dionne. The Canadiens are expected to have icons Jean Béliveau and Dickie Moore taking part, with Jean-Guy Talbot, Stéphane Richer and Claude Lemieux.

Now, I may not remember the rivalries of Gordie Howe, Pronovost, Beliveau and Moore, but I'm pretty sure the Habs are stretching when they ask Richer and Claude Lemieux to come along. In Richer's heyday (that would have been his first time here), the Red Wings were an awful outfit, only making the playoffs because Yzerman was putting up 120+ seasons and the North Stars and Maple Leafs couldn't get their acts together either. Lemieux was here during that time too, and left Montreal well before Sergei Fedorov and Niklas Lidstrom arrived to turn the RWs around.

Ironically though, of the post-expansion players. Claude Lemieux would probably be classified as Red Wing rival (maybe even enemy) #1. His hit on Kris Draper at the Avalanche-Red Wings back-and-forth was the powderkeg that set that (probably more tangible) on fire.

Besides the fact his hit was dirty. And that Draper will be on the ice. I don't see many good reasons for Lemieux to be at a ceremony with guys like Howe, Beliveau, Dionne and Delvecchio. I think Lemieux should call up tomorrow morning and excuse himself from this one.



His ceremony will come the day they reinstate the Hartford Whalers.