Firing Claude Julien Was a Mistake

Hindsight is 20/20. Should the Montreal Canadiens have not fired Claude Julien, it’s unlikely the team would have made their memorable run to the Stanley Cup Finals - I’ll readily admit that. That said, given a repeat of Dominique Ducharme at the helm under the same circumstances, I would argue the Cinderella run was equally - if not more - unlikely.

At the time of Julien’s firing in February, fans were out for his head, and management’s patience for success was wearing thin. It shouldn’t have been. The Canadiens were - and still are - a mediocre team with severe flaws: too many of the same defensemen, a lack of top-end scoring talent, and a pathetic powerplay. Despite that, Julien’s Habs held a 9-5-4 record (61.11% of possible points accumulated) and sat at pole position league-wide in expected goals for percentage (56.62%), high danger corsi for percentage (58.72%), and goals for percentage (62.29%), as well as second in corsi for percentage (55.01%) according to Natural Stat Trick. The team did have the advantage of playing five of their 18 games against the Canucks, but the team still sported a 56.25 xGF% and a 55.00 GF% when excluding all games against Vancouver - good for ranks 1 and 7 league-wide respectively, and only two teams managed to best them in a game at even strength: Ottawa (2-1 on February 4th) and Edmonton (2-0 on February 11th).

Julien’s woes were clearly a matter of special teams - the powerplay scored a fairly average 6.33 goals per 60 minutes, while the penalty kill leaked goals and chances against: opposition teams picked apart the penalty kill like wild animals to roadkill, scoring 8.99 goals per 60 and generating 7.32 xG/60. The decaying animal carcass that was the Habs’ special teams desperately needed a complete overhaul, but ridding the team of arguably the league’s best even strength coach should not have been the answer. 

A more appropriate answer would have been delegation. Julien was canned alongside associate coach Kirk Muller, former Canadiens icon who spent the last few years running the team’s powerplay into the ground after doing the very same thing in St. Louis. The same Kirk Muller who immediately found a coaching job in Calgary, while Julien remains unemployed. Instead, Muller should have seen the door alongside defense and penalty kill coach Luke Richardson, opening up positions for competent specialized assistants to accommodate Julien's areas of shortcoming. 

Relative to most teams, the Julien era Habs were dominant. Relative to the Ducharme era Habs, they were even more so. Though Ducharme operated with the disadvantage of injuries and a more compact schedule, his regular season record being a losing one (15-16-7) is unacceptable. While his team did perform significantly better in the playoffs, his regular season squad would not have even made it there if not for Julien’s help. Here’s a comparison of the two coaches in 2020-21:

(Claude Julien left, Dominique Ducharme right)

(Data via Natural Stat Trick)

Julien I’ve already spoken of in-depth, so I’ll focus on Ducharme’s numbers here: in 5v5 GF%, xGF%, and HDCF%, Ducharme posted results below the mean despite a roster proven by Julien to be a very effective even strength roster. His saving grace was a 13th-ranked powerplay, which produced 6.77 goals per 60 minutes - something Julien lacked. Though the perception existed with Ducharme that his team produced higher quality shots than Julien’s, the opposite was actually true. At even strength, Ducharme averaged significantly fewer expected goals and high danger chances than Julien, and actually scored fewer goals than expected goals while Julien’s team outproduced their expected goals.

So what made Julien’s team so much more effective than Ducharme’s? Ducharme’s preaching of puck support helped the team break out of their own end and find chances on the rush, but their over-reliance on puck movement wasn’t the best stylistic choice for a team not built on passing ability, skating, and deception. 

Julien’s approach was more simplistic: gain the offensive zone usually via the dump and chase, recover the puck, and search for any shot on goal possible. Though the initial shot wasn’t usually all that threatening, the deflections and second and third opportunities were - and they were perfectly geared towards a forward corps built around guys like Brendan Gallagher, Phillip Danault and Jesperi Kotkaniemi. Julien’s ragging offensive style also has an inadvertent positive effect on defense. It’s often said that the best defense is a good offense. I wouldn’t argue that, but something similar I do believe rings true: the best defense is offense. As in, the best defense is when the puck is as far away from your net as possible. Julien’s teams tend to spend a lot of time in the offensive zone, the consequence being the other team can’t spend that time in the Canadiens’ end generating scoring chances.

Julien’s success is nothing new either - his teams have always performed admirably at 5-on-5:

These are not the numbers of a man who should be unemployed. These are the numbers of a man who was fired undeservingly after a three-game skid of overtime losses due to trivial issues: a poor powerplay and penalty kill, and terrible play in extra time. These problems could have been solved by replacing coaching staff with specialists and adding new voices with new ideas into the room. Instead, the Canadiens’ management took the nuclear route. Now they’re paying the price.