FanHouse Claude Julien

Carolina Hurricanes forward Scott Walker made some headlines on Sunday night for his one-punch knockout (pictured right) of Bruins defenseman Aaron Ward in the closing minutes of Boston's 4-0 win in Game 5 of their Eastern Conference semifinal series. Walker was issued 17 minutes in penalties for the hit, including a two-minute instigator penalty.

Because the NHL is supposedly cracking down on late-game message sending and brawling, any player that receives an instigator penalty in the final five minutes of regulation -- or overtime -- is automatically suspended for the following game. The NHL's wheel of discipline, however, has decided to rescind that rule, as Walker will be available for Game 6 in Carolina on Tuesday night.

After losing three straight games for just the third time this season, the Boston Bruins were facing elimination on Sunday night against the Carolina Hurricanes. The Bruins, behind a 19-save shutout by Tim Thomas, managed to keep their season rolling with a commanding 4-0 win at TD Banknorth Garden.

Following Boston's 4-1 loss in Carolina on Friday, head coach Claude Julien made mention that his team picked a bad time to be playing its worst hockey of the season, getting outscored by a 10-3 margin during its three-game skid. For one night, all of that was forgotten as the Bruins played a relatively perfect game in every phase.

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The Bruins and Hurricanes enter their Eastern Conference semifinal coming off completely different opening round wins.

On one hand, Boston absolutely dominated a hapless Canadiens squad with a clean four-game sweep. On the other hand, Carolina had to go seven games with the Devils, including a nail-biter in the deciding game that saw the Hurricanes tie it, and win it, in the final two minutes of regulation.

The Boston Bruins had quite a scare Saturday, as they prepared for Game Two of their playoff series against Montreal. Defenseman Matt Hunwick was taken to an area hospital after falling ill during a team meeting.

Head coach Claude Julien says Hunwick's problem is related to his spleen. No other information was immediately available, though the Boston Globe says Hunwick apparently did not lose consciousness.

The Montreal Canadiens entered 2008-09 as a serious Stanley Cup contender in what was supposed to be a glorious centennial celebration. Instead, the season has been derailed by scandal off the ice and disappointing results on it, and the man that's going to take the fall for it all is head coach Guy Carbonneau. The 38-year-old Carbonneau was fired on Monday afternoon, and will be replaced by general manager Bob Gainey.

With the news hitting the wires yesterday that Montreal Canadiens defenseman Mike Komisarek would miss another month with a shoulder injury he suffered during a fight with Boston Bruins winger Milan Lucic on November 13, plenty of folks were buzzing about the possibility that Lucic would be forced to drop the gloves on Saturday night with the league's reigning tough man, Canadiens winger Georges Laraque.

It didn't happen, but it wasn't for lack of trying. Taking advantage of having the last line change, Canadiens head coach Guy Carboneau assigned Laraque to shadow Lucic all night long. A quick look at the highlights I saw on Hockey Night in Canada made it clear that Laraque was doing his level best to goad Lucic into dropping the gloves, but the 20-year old winger wasn't biting.

There were three pretty significant injuries in the NHL over the past week, as Francois Beauchemin (Ducks), Andrew Ference (Bruins) and Andy McDonald (Blues) all suffered major leg injuries that will keep them out of their respective lineups for extended periods of time.

A quick look at each injury, and the impact they will have on each team.

First, for the Ducks, Beauchemin suffered a torn ACL in Anaheim's 4-3 loss to Nashville on Thursday night, and is expected to miss the next six months. The 28-year old defenseman has been a steady 25-minute per game player for the Ducks since being acquired in a trade with Columbus during the 2005-06 campaign.

Aside from being second on the team in ice-time, Beauchemin was also one of the team's best shot blockers and penalty killers. His injury, combined with the early season trade of Mathieu Schneider to Atlanta (for salary cap purposes) has left the Ducks once vaunted defensive unit rather depleted. Let's face it, no disrespect to Kent Huskins and Bret Hedican intended, but it's not exactly the unit that hoisted the Stanley Cup two years ago.

If you're looking for a positive for the Ducks, Beauchemin's injury and ensuing placement on the long-term injury list has cleared enough space under the league's salary cap for the team to bring up top prospect Bobby Ryan. Ryan, a former No. 2 overall pick, had registered 19 points in 14 games for the Iowa Chops of the American Hockey League.

There was a curious line this morning in Jack Todd's celebration of Montreal's regular season conference championship: "Claude Julien has every reason to coach for revenge, and he should give Guy Carbonneau a battle for the Jack Adams Trophy." The curiosity doesn't come from Julien's name being associated with coach of the year honors, as he willed an injury-plagued and offensively challenged Bruins team to the postseason. Rather, it comes from the notion that Carbonneau is the prohibitive favorite for the Jack Adams.

Like many others, I was completely wrong on Carbo's abilities as a head coach prior to this season. His system matched the personnel to perfection in Montreal, and his decisions regarding that personnel were uniformly correct. Winning the East when The Hockey News has your team 13th in the conference before the season is no small feat. Carbonneau's peers have acknowledged this: TSN polled 27 of 30 NHL coaches, and 11 of them cast their lots for the Habs bench boss:

Guy Carbonneau, Mon 11
Mike Babcock, Det 7
Bruce Boudreau, Was 2
Claude Julien, Bos 2
Barry Trotz, Nas 2

According to the coaches, the Jack Adams Award appears to be as much a non-competitive slam dunk as we assume the Hart Trophy will be now that Ovechkin's in the postseason. But other cases can be made in this race; and all due respect to Carbonneau, they're pretty damn compelling.

Who's In: Manny Fernandez G (Trade-Minn), Peter Schaefer LW (Trade OTT), Claude Julien HEAD COACH (FA NJD)

Who's Out: Shean Donovan W (Trade OTT), Stanislov Chistov (FA RSL), Petr Tenkrat (FA SEL), Jason York (FA Unsigned), Hannu Toivenen (Trade: StL), Brad Stuart (FA LAK).

What's Changed: Not a whole helluva lot, frankly. The mostly inept management in Beantown have continued to put together a lackluster group of players for a top-notch coach to struggle with and eventually become unemployed over.The old hockey adage, "It's easier to fire the coach than the players," was never more applicable than to the perpetually "just good enough to suck" Broons. This year's candidate for not reaching the end of his contract is Claude Julien, he who was summarily dumped by Evil Lou in New Jersey at the end of March heading into the Playoffs. At least he's got experience in taking abuse from management, a trait that will be needed now that he's the bench boss for a rebuilding (perpetually, it seems) Boston club. At least Peter Chiarelli stayed out of the free agent market this off-season, which may be a sign that they've finally learned that good organizational structure leads to a good hockey club. If anything, that might be the biggest change of all for the Bruins.

On the plus side for Julien, he'll have a legitimate #1 goaltender to put out most nights, in newly-acquired Manny Fernandez. On the other, though, is the now-grossly-overpaid backup in Tim Thomas. Maybe he'll ape the strategy used by Jacques Lemaire in Minnesota, pitting the two goalies against each other. Part of me really pities Manny Fernandez, really.

Peter Schaefer is a solid, chippy, if unspectacular player in the mold of B's veteran P.J. Axelsson. Acquiring and developing people of his temperament and work ethic is key to turning things around in Boston.

For the second time in recent memory, New Jersey Devils GM Lou Lamoriello has sacked a winning head coach on the eve of the playoffs. Blogger Tom Benjamin asks, where's the outrage?

This is the sort of move that makes me hate the business side of sports entertainment. Even if we accept that the decision to fire Claude Julien will marginally improve the New Jersey chance at a Stanley Cup - a dubious premise - it's still wrong. Not only did Claude Julien do nothing wrong, he's actually done pretty well. Is there any other business where this kind of behaviour from senior management is considered acceptable?

Normally, the shelf life on NHL coaches is the shortest in the world of professional sports. But when the team you run has won three Cups in 12 seasons and reached the Finals one other time, outrage is going to be in short supply. I also don't doubt that the Devils may be the only team that could pull off a maneuver like this one. Playing in the shadow of the Rangers, the media spotlight has never shined terribly brightly on the Devils, and that's the case even in years when they've played brilliantly and won Stanley Cups.

And the fact of the matter is that Lamoriello may very well have found the model NHL franchise to work his magic with, something I've discussed with my friend Greg Wyshynski from time to time. Without the constant media attention that teams in other large markets enjoy, or suffer from, his decisions don't come under nearly as much scrutiny as a Glen Sather or John Ferguson, Jr. Sure, it might also mean smaller crowds and meager television contracts, but something tells ms Lamoriello has made his peace with a tradeoff that allows him more latitude with his team than another other GM in the league.