Jacobs puts coach’s job in hands of Sweeney, Neely

We don’t know if Claude Julien is going to make it through the season as head coach of the struggling Bruins.

What we do know — now — is that team president Cam Neely and general manager Don Sweeney have the support of ownership if they decide to make that move. That’s what Bruins chief executive officer Charlie Jacobs told me when we spoke yesterday.

“That’s not my call to make,” Jacobs said of any coaching change. “That’s on Cam and Donnie.”

Fine, but surely Neely and Sweeney would have to, and I’m using an oldfashioned business phrase, run it up the flag pole if they were to fire Julien. Right? “Yes, they would, but this would be their move if they wanted to make a decision like that,” Jacobs said. “There’s a reason they’re the president and the general manager. If they have to make a decision like this, my job would be to support them.” So there. Neely and Sweeney don’t need to ask Jacobs for permission to fire Julien. They only need to send him a note.

But considering how poorly the Bruins performed in their 4-0 loss to the lowly New York Islanders on Monday afternoon at the Garden, this seemed like a good time to call Charlie.

“Obviously a game like we played on Monday doesn’t sit very well,” Jacobs said, “but I haven’t talked to coach Julien about it.”

To add a measure of comedy to this discussion, a coaching change did come in the aftermath of Monday’s game. It’s just that it was Islanders coach Jack Capuano. Kind of makes you wonder what would have happened to the poor guy had the Islanders lost.

Capuano, like Julien, had been coaching his team for a long time. This was Capuano’s seventh season; Julien is in his 10th with the B’s.

But while Capuano was emptying out his desk yesterday, Julien was emptying out the ice at Warrior Ice Arena. Julien called off the team’s morning practice at the new Brighton rink but told reporters, “I still believe in this group; never have not believed in this group. Having said that, I understand there’s work to be done, and there’s challenges ahead.”

Fine, but do the higher-ups still believe in him?

Jacobs, while sticking to his belief that only the guys who run hockey ops should speak about what’s happening on the ice, did note that he’s seen signs of optimism. He singled out the Bruins’ 5-3 victory against the Blues on Jan. 10 in St. Louis, saying, “We beat a very good team.”

But there are hints from hockey ops that firing Julien remains a possibility. While Neely wasn’t speaking specifically about coaching when he spoke to the Herald’s Stephen Harris on Jan. 8, he came across as . . . anxious.

“It’s been a frustrating year because we’ve shown plenty of times that we can play, and play well,” Neely said. “Then there’s times where you’re saying, ‘ What happened?’ If you didn’t see those good times, you’d look at the team differently. But there have been enough good times that you have to say, ‘OK, we can do this.’

“We just have to be more consistent on a regular basis.”

And there’s this: Julien sounded as though he was defending himself last week in Nashville when he spoke about the difficulty of taking a team loaded with young players and transforming the whole lot of ’ em into a playoff contender.

“Sometimes what you guys are missing is that we’re not a rebuilding team, but we’re a team with a lot of new faces,” he said. “And to think that all of a sudden we should be clicking on all cylinders is not realistic. When you have seven (new) players, or maybe even more, that are with our team this year, and the number of guys who are in their first full seasons in the NHL, I guess there’s a building process. Not a rebuilding, but a building process that you have to go through. These guys have to go through that, and there’s pain along the way.”

The Bruins generally don’t create much buzz this time of year. With the Patriots just days away from making their annual appearance in the AFC Championship Game, this is when the B’s fly under the radar and fix what needs fixing.

But then came Monday’s bow wow performance against the Islanders, followed by Charlie Jacobs affirming that Julien’s fate rests with Neely and Sweeney.

The Bruins have five games remaining before the All-Star break. If they don’t turn things around, Jacobs might yet find that note on his desk about a coaching change.