Just months after being turfed by the New Jersey Devils just prior to this spring’s Stanley Cup Playoffs, former Montreal Canadiens coach Claude Julien appears to be the next choice as head coach of the Boston Bruins.
Will this be the antidote to the many things that ail the Spoked B’s?
I doubt it but, as I said yesterday, I give Bruins GM Peter Chiarelli and the B’s a great deal of credit for coming to the realization that Dave Lewis was an outstanding human being – but not an outstanding hockey coach. Lewis had some degree of difficulty rotating young, up-and-coming Bruins players into the regular rotation and he simply couldn’t make the needed game-to-game adjustments.
One need to look no further than the numbers put up by hulking 24-year-old defenseman Milan Jurcina during his time with the Bruins and then with the Washington Capitals after he was dealt by the B’s. Jurcina simply wasn’t getting a shot with the B’s, and he became an effective member of Washington’s top six D-men after the deal.

 Milan Jurcina          GP   G   A   PTS   +/-   PIM SOG   ATOI  
Boston                    40   2   1    3      -5     20   29     10:42
Washington            30   2   7    9      +5    24   42     23:09                     

                 
Will update everyone if there’s any other announcement scheduled for today at the TD Banknorth Garden…

Another quick flash for the college hockey fans in my midst. According to a source with some pretty good hockey connections, Burlington, Mass. native and former Merrimack College standout Bobby Jay has left his position as assistant coach at Harvard University after three seasons on the job. I’m going to make some phone calls and attempt to get to the bottom of this one for those curious about the situation.

More in a bit…