One of the big loose ends at the end of the 2014-15 regular season was officially tied up Friday.
After months of uncertainty, the Boston Bruins have opted to retain head coach Claude Julien and his staff for the 2015-16 season. After general manager Peter Chiarelli was let go, Julien’s status was up in the air and was going to be left to Chiarelli’s replacement.
Former assistant GM Don Sweeney was announced as the Bruins’ general manager on May 20, but Julien’s status has remained unclear. That ended Friday at the NHL Draft Combine when Sweeney formally confirmed that Julien and his coaching staff would return behind the bench next season (via Joe Haggerty of CSN New England).
Following the Bruins’ failure to reach the playoffs this year, plenty of blame got placed on Julien. That came despite the fact the Bruins were put in a dire salary cap situation by the since-ousted general manager and dealt with a series of significant injuries over the course of the season, keeping key players out of the lineup.
The Bruins still underachieved and a portion of that blame belongs on the head coach, as it always should, but with the way things went this summer the Bruins almost had no choice but to bring Julien back.
The Bruins took an awful long time to find Chiarelli’s replacement for ending the process by hiring an in-house candidate. Then it took a few weeks to make their intentions known about Julien. Over those several weeks, the deepest field of free agent coaches we’ve seen in years, dried up as the best candidates got hired.
At that point, was there or is there anyone better than Julien out their right now? It's tough to say yes there.
The Bruins have a veteran team and probably need a veteran coach. Having the guy that has won 351 games of the 622 he has coached in Boston and with two trips to the Stanley Cup Final under his belt is probably the right move. The only question that is left now is how much leash will Julien get to start the season?
Probably not a long one if the Bruins struggle early.
There’s a lot of work for Sweeney to do as GM, but he’s still fresh in his job. The team has contracts with key players to work out and trades to explore to remain cap compliant, not to mention a hugely important draft to prepare for.
If Sweeney can make some positive moves for the team to fill out the roster adequately, perhaps Julien can find better success behind the bench.
