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Montreal Loses Fourth Straight In OT Loss Against Dallas, Claude Julien Not Pleased With Refs

Austin Letorney — Mon, 17 Feb 2020 18:58:48 +0000

Montreal Canadiens head coach Claude Julien was more than frustrated after his team’s overtime loss to the Dallas Stars Saturday night. Julien, who rarely speaks out about officiating, felt that referees Dean Morton and Garrett Rank missed several calls.

“It’s pretty obvious we should have gotten power plays,” said Julien. “Some people need to be held accountable after this game. We had to beat two teams tonight.”

“We couldn’t talk to the official,” he continued. “He was screaming at our players. I told him, when he was close to the bench, that I hoped he watched his games back. He told me to take a hike.”

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The Canadiens went up 3-0 in the second, only to blow that lead and lose the game in overtime.

Joel Armia scored the first goal with a tap-in off Max Domi‘s loose rebound. In the second, Jordan Weal put one away to make it 2-0. Less than three minutes later, Nick Cousins beat Ben Bishop between the pads to put Montreal up three.

But Dallas was ready to make a comeback. Mattias Janmark and Blake Comeau added two in the Stars comeback, but Tyler Seguin proved to be the deciding factor, putting one away in the second, as well as the overtime winner on a nifty backhand goal.

“That was a good hockey team over there,” Domi said. “They’re a veteran team and they stuck with it. They got some bounces, some power plays and they capitalized.”

Montreal has now lost four in a row and look to bounce back as they take on the Detroit Red Wings on Monday at 7:30 p.m. ET in Detroit.

The game will air on TSN2.

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Canadiens Beat Rangers 3-2 In Shootout

Pablo Mena — Wed, 22 Feb 2017 17:05:51 +0000

The Montreal Canadiens were playing in just their second game under new coach Claude Julien on Tuesday, but they managed to secure their first victory with their new leader.

Paul Byron Lifts Canadiens to 3-2 Shootout Win Vs Rangers

Paul Byron scored the decisive goal in the fifth round of a shootout to lift the Canadiens to a 3-2 win over the New York Rangers at Madison Square Garden on Tuesday night. Alexander Radulov also scored in the shootout.

Julien– who previously coached Montreal from 2003 to 2006 — replaced Michel Therrien on Feb. 14, just seven days after he was fired by the Boston Bruins as head coach.

“Playing the way we did tonight hopefully encourages us to play that way moving on here,” Julien said. “It wasn’t the perfect game, but our compete level was good, and when your compete level is good, you have a chance to win. I thought our guys did a great job of that.”

The Canadiens (32-20-8) had lost three straight games and were 1-6-1 in their past eight as they visited the Garden for the first time since November 2015. The Habs remain in first place in the Atlantic Division, two points ahead of the Ottawa Senators.

The Rangers (38-19-2), meanwhile, had won seven of eight this month.

New York got game-tying goals from Oscar Lindberg in the first period and Rick Nash in the second. Henrik Lundqvist made 26 saves.

Montreal’s Andrew Shaw opened scoring with a wraparound shot 3:55 into the game, beating Lundqvist on his stick side for his eighth goal of the season.

Lindberg tied it at 10:03 by redirecting lineman Jesper Fast’s pass to the slot past goalie Carey Price, who finished with 28 saves. Among Price’s big stops was a diving save of Ranger J.T. Miller’s shot with 3.7 seconds remaining in overtime.

Canadiens defenseman Shea Weber gave his team a 2-1 lead with a power-play goal at 1:42 of the second period.

Nash then tied it 2-2 with a breakaway goal at 9:26. It came 6:05 after he was denied by Price on a breakaway.

New York’s Mats Zuccarello scored in the first round of the shootout, and Radulov tied it in the second round. Price made saves on Derek Stepan, Jimmy Vesey and Miller before Byron finally sealed the win.

“All the stuff we’ve been doing in practice, it’s reinforcing everything the coach is telling us to get a win against a very good Rangers hockey team on the road,” Byron said. “It can give us a lot of confidence.”

In overtime, Lundqvist made a glove save 30 seconds in on Montreal’s Max Pacioretty and then denied him again on a close shot two minutes later.

“Both teams played hard,” Lundqvist said. “We came back twice, so it could have gone either way. It’s always disappointing to come up short, obviously, in a shootout, but that’s the way it went.”

This was the third Rangers home game this season to go to overtime, and first since Dec. 18. All three have ended in a shootout.

The Rangers next visit the Toronto Maple Leafs on Thursday, when the Canadiens host the New York Islanders.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3j9-8yPTdrM

NEW YORK, NY – FEBRUARY 21: Paul Byron #41 of the Montreal Canadiens celebrates his game winning shootout goal against Henrik Lundqvist #30 of the New York Rangers at Madison Square Garden on February 21, 2017 in New York City. The Canadiens defeated the Rangers 3-2 in the shootout. (Photo by Bruce Bennett/Getty Images)

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Canadiens Fire Michel Therrien, Hire Ex-Bruins Coach Claude Julien

Pablo Mena — Wed, 15 Feb 2017 17:30:22 +0000

The Montreal Canadiens have fired Michel Therrien and hired recently dismissed Boston Bruins coach Claude Julien, the team announced Tuesday.

Canadiens Hire Claude Julien as head Coach

“I would like to sincerely thank Michel for his relentless work with the Montreal Canadiens over his eight seasons behind the bench, including the last five seasons when we worked together,” general manager Marc Bergevin said Tuesday.

“The decision to remove Michel from his coaching duties was a difficult one because I have lots of respect for him. I came to the conclusion that our team needed a new energy, a new voice, a new direction. Claude Julien is an experienced and well respected coach with a good knowledge of the Montreal market. Claude has been very successful as an NHL coach and he won the Stanley Cup. Today we hired the best available coach, and one of the league’s best. I am convinced that he has the capabilities to get our team back on the winning track.”

The Habs are first in the Atlantic Division of the Eastern Conference with a 31-19-8 record. Their last game was a 4-0 loss to the Bruins on Sunday, and next host the Winnipeg Jets on Saturday.

Julien, 56, was fired just last week (Feb. 7) by the Bruins, whom he led to a Stanley Cup win in 2011, and with whom he had been the longest-tenured coach in the NHL.

Therrien was in his fifth season of his second tour as Canadiens coach. Montreal missed the playoffs last season after goalkeeper Carey Price injured his knee in November.

This marks the second time the Habs have fired Therrien and replaced him with Julien. The same thing happened 46 games into the 2002-03 season. Julien ended up coaching there from 2003 to 2006.

The Bruins are six points behind the Canadiens in the Atlantic. The teams will not play each other again this regular season.

NEWARK, NJ – JANUARY 08: Claude Julien of the Boston Bruins instructs his team during the second period against the New Jersey Devils at the Prudential Center on January 8, 2016 in Newark, New Jersey. (Photo by Bruce Bennett/Getty Images)

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Bruins Fire Coach Claude Julien; Twitter Reacts To Questionable Timing Of Decision

Pablo Mena — Tue, 07 Feb 2017 18:03:30 +0000

As the Boston Bruins seem destined to miss the playoffs for the third straight year, the team fired head coach Claude Julien Tuesday morning.

Bruins Fire Coach Claude Julien

Julien will be replaced by one of his assistants, Bruce Cassidy, on an interim basis.

The Bruins made the announcement at approximately 8 am, in a written statement attributed to general manager Don Sweeney. Julien, one of the NHL’s most respected coaches, was hired in Boston in 2007, and led the franchise to a Stanley Cup championship in 2011, the Bruins’ first title since the Bobby Orr days of 1972.

Julien’s firing has been a source of constant speculation this season, after two years of the Bruins narrowly missing the playoffs, amid an ongoing changeover of roster personnel and the dismissal of then-GM Peter Chiarelli before last season.

Chiarelli, who became Boston’s GM in 2006, hired Julien, a former coach of the Montreal Canadiens and New Jersey Devils, after first hiring Dave Lewis as coach to lead a team that only recently had traded Joe Thornton as its would-be franchise center.

With a 26-23-6 record and on the outside of the playoff race in the Eastern Conference, the Bruins will seek to avoid yet another failed playoff bid.

Many fans and reporters took to Twitter on Tuesday to decry the extremely poor timing of the team’s decision to fire Julien, which people noted comes the same day as the New England Patriots’ Super Bowl victory parade in Boston, among other reasons for the terrible timing. The Patriots won the Super Bowl on Sunday in Houston.

Clearly, fans and the media alike did not hold back on their criticisms of the team.

Perhaps the main reason for the outrage over the timing of the decision is the fact that Julien finished his career as the Bruins’ all-time coaching wins (419) leader. He compiled a 419-246-94 record and .614 winning percentage in 759 games behind the team’s bench. The Bruins also reached the playoffs in seven of his nine seasons, and he owns the club career coaching record with 57 postseason victories, including the Cup-clinching win in Game 7 of the 2011 finals against the Vancouver Canucks.

Julien is thought to have two years left on his contract, at upward of $3 million a year, and he will surely be pursued aggressively by other teams.

Like Julien, Cassidy, 51, was a career minor-league defenseman who was raised in the Ottawa area and first began coaching 20 years ago by heading the Jacksonville Lizard Kings of the ECHL.

Known by many as “Butch,” he was promoted to Julien’s assistant coaching staff this season after five years as head coach of Boston’s AHL affiliate in Providence. Cassidy was head coach of the Washington Capitals from 2002-04, where he helped lead the Caps to a 39-29-8-6 record and a postseason berth in his first season as an NHL coach.

Following his dismissal in Washington, he served as an assistant coach with the Chicago Blackhawks for the 2005-06 season. The Bruins’ press release did not state whether the team will hire another assistant now that Cassidy has been promoted.

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