Claude Julien Staying as Coach
- Thread starter cshea
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Yeah, I'm in a much happier place after hearing what they had to say in the PC than I was at 10:00. There are going to be some tough decisions and probably more than a little frustration. But they're saying the right things (to me at least).
I wouldn't say that Claude is an amazing coach. He's a very good one with some excellent strengths (defensive mostly) and some weaknesses too (offensive mostly). And he coaches a style that I find painful to watch at times. But in the absence of a great coach to replace him with (which I haven't heard the Bruins in connection with), firing him wasn't going to improve this team. I could see it happening to appease fans and buy Sweeney time under his coaching choice, so I pretty much expected it, but it's probably the right move to keep him.
Why does he still have this tag as offense being a weakness. He had had multiple teams finish in the top of the league in scoring. Yes he plays a system that focuses on defense but I scoring goals hasn't routinely been an issue. Add that to the burying young players trope. This is great news glad to have him back. I was petrified they set going pull tito 2.0
Top 5 in team goals scored 4 of the last 6 years. This is one of the worst myths of Claude's style. Yes he preaches defensive responsibility and they don't have any high end Stamkos/Ovechkin scorers, but they still score plenty.
Edit to add: While the perception of Marchand isn't with those guys yet, a few more seasons like this one and he may have to start being included in the elite goal scorer category.
I am just so relieved. I was terrified of who might replace him, and Claude going to someone else in the division and making them better. This makes me a little more confident in the front office, and I am really happy they are keeping him.
I also agree with TFP, those quotes are really good stuff. I love that he recognizes the challenge they face.
Hopefully they can give him a defense next year. Let us hope.
I also agree with TFP, those quotes are really good stuff. I love that he recognizes the challenge they face.
Hopefully they can give him a defense next year. Let us hope.
This has already been rebuked, but it deserves to be at every turn. Claude Julien doesn't coach with a "defense at all costs" style. He doesn't trap, he doesn't use the old RW lock, and as has been said MANY times over the last 6 years, his teams generally score. Julien's style is more akin to a thorough 200 foot game, where the best offense comes off turnovers and transition rather than everyone bailing out for the offensive zone at the first good look. The big thing about that is having 6 players that know where they need to be when the other team has the puck to create those turnovers and get easy access to the offensive zone for multiple players at a time, followed by strong possession and a methodical approach once that possession is established.
About the only thing I'd like to see is this team FINALLY learn a competent breakout. More often than not, this team has cone undone by slow, predictable, D-to-D passing breakouts that allow the other team's forecheck to get establish and undo a lot of the good they do to get the puck off their opponents.
I fucking love this guy. Throw a bench on the ice, just once next year, Claude.
This makes me really happy.
Hopefully this is at least partly because the front office has seen that they made some mistakes over the last year, and they are looking to find a way to fix them.
Of course, this good decision could also mean that Sweeney has to counterbalance it with something truly awful..... but I'm not even going to go there right now.
Hopefully this is at least partly because the front office has seen that they made some mistakes over the last year, and they are looking to find a way to fix them.
Of course, this good decision could also mean that Sweeney has to counterbalance it with something truly awful..... but I'm not even going to go there right now.
I actually noticed a step forward there this year. They stopped the relentless D to D and definitely tried to push the pace more. Unfortunately, 2/3 of the time it was Chara, McQuaid, Miller, or Seidenberg doing so, so results were mixed. But at least they stopped going horizontal.
Krug and surprisingly Liles were excellent at this.
It was my understanding that this was always one of the strengths of Liles game. Calm under pressure and makes a great first pass. Which leads to aren't those constant D to D passes a byproduct of personnel? Meaning if you prioritize large slow moving D who's strength isn't puck movement (Chara, McQuaid, Miller, the recent incarnation of Seids) you are going to have a slow breakout less effective breakout vs guys who are able smoother skaters to make a first move and then effectively move the puck.
Sometimes I feel like we should change the forum description to something like "where Jacobs isn't cheap and Claude likes to score". Except, you know, clever.
I think his teams have had a lot of issues with breakouts from their zones, and power plays. When they play well defensively they have the puck a lot and score, yes. But his issues are figuring out how to create offensive flow. When things break down for the Bruins, this is where it goes wrong. On the other hand, they have been very good on the PK, and have generally had a good defensive system in place and players flow well in that end. When the Bruins have broken down defensively it's mostly been lack of talent, not scheme. Scoring on the counter is how defense oriented teams control play, and the Bruins have been good at it in certain years when they had the players. But when it comes to designing offense, Claude sucks.
The thing with the breakouts is that when you have a defensively responsible team and you work very hard in your own end to win back possession you're liable to be slow out of the zone because players have a lot of ice to cover to resume their positioning and get to their lanes. It's sort of part and parcel of the way they defend that the breakout will take a bit to develop precisely because they seldom have a player in a great position to cheat and fly the zone. I'm not sure how "fixable" it really is or if it's even broken, really. Just seems like an inevitability given their overall approach.
About the only thing you can say about Julien's "designing offense" is that he certainly seems to prefer for his teams to dump and chase over carrying it into the zone. Again, this makes sense, because they can choose where the puck goes and can apply consistent pressure across the ice to create turnovers and still be in a good shape should the other team recover the puck. Realistically, he's just a conservative coach who wants to always have his players in a position where they can cover their responsibilities.
About the only thing you can say about Julien's "designing offense" is that he certainly seems to prefer for his teams to dump and chase over carrying it into the zone. Again, this makes sense, because they can choose where the puck goes and can apply consistent pressure across the ice to create turnovers and still be in a good shape should the other team recover the puck. Realistically, he's just a conservative coach who wants to always have his players in a position where they can cover their responsibilities.
Dumping the puck sucks.
It's been shown that carrying the puck into the zone creates more goals. The game has changed and defensemen need to be quick to the puck and quicker the other way. Hockey has become a transition game and it starts from the back and dumping it in is just turning it over. I think the Bs have done a nice job identifying young puck moving defensemen, but until those guys are ready you get the shit show you had this season.
It's been shown that carrying the puck into the zone creates more goals. The game has changed and defensemen need to be quick to the puck and quicker the other way. Hockey has become a transition game and it starts from the back and dumping it in is just turning it over. I think the Bs have done a nice job identifying young puck moving defensemen, but until those guys are ready you get the shit show you had this season.
It has surprised me that they do seem open to having undersized puck moving defensemen who are not great defensively, but not willing to have offensive oriented forwards who take risks offensively and aren't great defensively. You'd think you would budge on the forwards first, but maybe that just demonstrates that they realize how important getting the puck out of your end is, but don't realize you have to get it up to someone. Or maybe I'm just frustrated that the franchise I follow keeps dumping their high end offensive talent for mediocre returns, because those players aren't perfect, and their coach can't diagram a power play, break out, or other offensive play to save his life. I appreciate what he is good at, I just miss the other side of the game and how beautiful that can be.
The approach is fine...low breakouts are a result of the center's DZ responsibility, but can generate a lot of speed coming through the NZ. And it's actually a pretty quick shift from DZ responsibility to the BO, but it needs D who can move and move the puck. Which we haven't really seen for a couple of years.
I don't think you really design an offense at this level...all the players are just so good that talent wins out. You may attack a team differently depending on their preferred D (attacking through different seams, generating from the point, etc) but in general scoring is about talent.
I think Claude is right though...you need to be strong from the back out to win the Cup. '09 Penguins the last team that relied on forwards more than D and won the cup I think.
edit: Although wasn't that the playoffs that Sucderi was a beast? With Gonchar and Letang that would have been 3 strong mobile D men to go along with a couple of monsters in Orpik and Gill.
Seriously, you don't think they had a well designed power play this year? They also dumped the puck in far less frequently than they had in years past. The dump the puck strategy was largely due to having power forwards such as Lucic and Horton that would punish the D if they got to the puck first. The personnel moved away from those types of players and Julien adjusted, particularly on the power play. The design of the power play was to go through the neutral zone with speed and get the cycle set up on the 1/2 boards. That is a huge difference from a few years ago. I'm not sure what more is expected offensively from Julien. Also, Pastrnak breaking through as an 18 year old doesn't show you that they are willing to 'budge' on offensive orientated forwards?
Intuitively this sounds correct but has there been data that shows it? Everything I remember reading and from Google shows there are studies but they have difficulty separating the correlation/causation piece of it.
Have to admit I was pleasantly suprised by this, and I like the amount of reflection that Clode took in the Bean post. If you saw my mental rants on facebook and Twitter when I got into it with Dale stand on your shinebox Arnold Sat night, I kept saying one thing. I like Clode, he drives me mental rolling out the 4th line late in games, but he's done the best with the hand he was delt, 2 NHL quality lines, 2AHL qualities lines, and 3 sets of 5 and 6 Defenseman. I think Dale the Dwarf got pissed when I said "strip the C off the corpse of 33 and give it to 37" Charra is his binkie
Here's the study done for Sloan a few years ago by Eric Tulsky (now with Carolina) and a few others. You can read it if you speak Stat Nerd, but otherwise the abstract reads (bolding mine):
Separating a hockey player’s offensive and defensive contributions is quite difficult. Offensive skill can lead to increased puck possession and therefore improve statistics aimed at measuring defensive performance such as goals or shots allowed. This challenge can be overcome by measuring goals or shots per possession rather than per game, provided a reasonable estimate of possessions is available. Recording when the puck is brought across the blue line makes this transformation possible, enabling a true assessment of performance in the offensive or defensive zone. Surprisingly, a season of data shows no clear separation between players in shot production or suppression; if offensive stars generate more shots per offensive zone possession than fourth line grinders, the difference is small enough to not show up in a single season’s data. Instead, the team’s shot differential – which has been shown to be a strong predictor of wins – is determined almost entirely in the much less-heralded neutral zone. Neutral zone success involves more than getting extra zone entries; since carrying the puck across the blue line generates more than twice as many shots, scoring chances, and goals as dumping the puck in, gaining the zone with possession is a major driver of success.
Yeah, think about the goals Pasta scored in the Detroit game - the Liles pass was from the D zone all the way to the opponent blue line. The goal he scored in the OTT game was assisted by two forwards but Talbot was halfway into his own D zone when he started that play. It's possible to move the puck quickly up from the back of the zone if you have players with vision and the forwards are finding the gaps in the defense. The Bs have not always had players capable of both of those things at once.
That's really not what I was referring to. I don't have my home computer with my playbook, but I made this diagram to give an idea of what I mean about a low breakout and the transition from DZ play:
In the top you have a fairly typical DZ setup: SSD pressures puck, C backs up, SSW blocks high seam and covers pass to point, WSD and WSW cover net and slot.
Upon recovering the puck, the SSW pivots open around the hasmarks, the C swings low in support, and the WSW flys the zone. The D will typically move the puck to the SSW (who can then carry it out, touch it to the C who has momentum, or go long to the WSW) or the D can hit the C who is now accelerating into the NZ with a W ahead of him and one running with him.
So even though the BO starts low, if passes are to the right player and clean, you are coming out of the DZ with a lot of speed.
In the top you have a fairly typical DZ setup: SSD pressures puck, C backs up, SSW blocks high seam and covers pass to point, WSD and WSW cover net and slot.
Upon recovering the puck, the SSW pivots open around the hasmarks, the C swings low in support, and the WSW flys the zone. The D will typically move the puck to the SSW (who can then carry it out, touch it to the C who has momentum, or go long to the WSW) or the D can hit the C who is now accelerating into the NZ with a W ahead of him and one running with him.
So even though the BO starts low, if passes are to the right player and clean, you are coming out of the DZ with a lot of speed.
That doesn't really address the correlation/causality issue. Gaining the zone with possession IS a major driver of success. Constantly turning the puck over trying to skate into the zone is a major driver of failure. Telling bad players to stop dumping the puck in and trying to skate it in isn't necessarily going to make the team play better. I don't think there are many (if any) coaches telling players to dump the puck in if they're good enough to skate it in. Claude certainly has never done that. I can't seem to find any good statistics, but Marchand seems to be elite at gaining the zone with possession, and does it all the time. Krejci seems very good too. Dougie was great at it as a defenseman, Krug seems pretty good too and is given the freedom to do so.
I think the bigger issue is that the Bruins don't have a lot of players who are good at doing this important thing
Did you read the study?
"Contrary to popular understanding about the importance of making a team go the full length of the ice, failed attempts to carry the puck into the zone actually lead to fewer shots against than dump-and-chase plays and have a better average outcome than dumping the puck and going for a line change."
edit: I'm not saying this study is the end-all-be-all, but it is widely accepted empirical data.
"Contrary to popular understanding about the importance of making a team go the full length of the ice, failed attempts to carry the puck into the zone actually lead to fewer shots against than dump-and-chase plays and have a better average outcome than dumping the puck and going for a line change."
edit: I'm not saying this study is the end-all-be-all, but it is widely accepted empirical data.
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Corey Sznajder took Tulsky's work on zone entries and exits a step further. He spent a shitload of time and tracked zone entries and exits for every single game of the13/14 season. Interesting stuff. He got scooped up and consults for an NHL team now so unfortunately 13/14 is the only season of data he tracked, but player tracking technology is hopefully coming soon and will be a huge help in understanding entries and exits.
https://allthreezonesblog.wordpress.com/2015/09/16/all-three-zones-project-now-available/
https://allthreezonesblog.wordpress.com/2015/09/16/all-three-zones-project-now-available/