The Boston Bruins made the announcement early Tuesday morning that Claude Julien was fired as head coach. Unlike last week’s Ken Hitchcock firing, this one comes as much less of surprise as the Bruins season has been a up and down in recent years, a departure from their consistent powerhouse-like reign from 2011-2013.
Claude Julien was head coach of the Bruins going on ten years before he was relieved of his duties. It’s been made apparent that the Bruins are going to go after a head coach in the offseason due to them merely promoting assistant Bruce Cassidy to an interim role, as reported by many local Boston and national media outlets.
However, it’s not the firing itself that comes as a surprise, but when the firing was announced. The firing was announced the morning of the New England Patriots Super Bowl parade. The fact that the Bruins “newsdumped” the Julien story when the Patriots, who play in Foxborough, Massachusetts, 30 miles outside of Boston.
“Newsdumping” as it’s called, is the releasing a major story while a much larger story is occurring, in this case, the Super Bowl championship parade is the much larger story.
However you look at it, the Bruins do have hope for the future without Julien, this head coaching free-agency market is going to be one of the most deep and rich markets in recent years. This is due in part to the fact that Jack Capuano, Ken Hitchcock and Gerard Gallant are all on the market after getting fired by the Islanders, Blues and Panthers respectively.
These coaches are all very good coaches, who just didn’t work out at their respective teams arguably due to the perceived ineptitude of front office of decisions in recent years. The Bruins, however, will have to compete with other teams who fire their coaches later in the season if they want to sign one of these three. In addition, they’ll have to compete with the Vegas Golden Knights. The Golden Knights will undoubtedly look to make a mark on their inaugural season by making a splash in the coaching market.
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