Julien has valid case
Defense of coaching backed up by data
Claude Julien last week offered an unimpeachable defense of the job he and his assistant coaches have done this season with a rebuilding, flawed Bruins squad. His comments Tuesday were a transparent response to his critics who want him gone, and what he said was absolutely true.
The gist: The coaches have done their jobs just fine, setting up the players for success with their overall philosophies and individual game plans.
The Julien system has again done exactly what it’s supposed to do: create scoring chances on offense, and limit them defensively.
It’s been the failure of the players to take advantage of opportunities — along with the inability to stick to the system consistently — that has the team in such a mess at the All-Star break.
“Probably the only thing that we can’t do for them: We can’t shoot,” Julien said after a team practice. “I’m not pointing blame for the sake of pointing blame, but when we talk about creating scoring chances, that’s what we (the coaches) do: We need to give these players a certain style of play that will create scoring chances.
“If the individuals aren’t hitting the net and aren’t scoring, I don’t know that we can do much about it. We harp on it. We harp on them to hit the net. We show clips. But at one point, responsibilities have to be shared.”
We are not big on the whole hockey analytics business. To us, the value in these statistics is that they tend to reaffirm what a coach sees with his own eyes. An experienced coach doesn’t need fancy stats to know which players he can trust on an important defensive-zone faceoff, and which ones he can’t.
But even a cursory glance at advanced NHL stats fully support Julien’s claim that the system he’s installed works just fine.
In the metrics that measure puck possession, the Bruins have done very well. The numbers show that they tend to have the puck more than their opponents and generate lots of shots and scoring chances. Anyone who’s watched the B’s play knew that just from the eye test: We saw, game after game, far too many situations in which the B’s could have and should have won, but did not.
The B’s entered the AllStar break tied with Pittsburgh for No. 1 in the NHL in shots on net, averaging 34.4 per game. Their opponents have averaged just 26.6 shots, which is secondbest in the league.
In the CORSI statistic (the total of shots on net, plus shots that are blocked and those that miss the net), puckalytics.com stats show that the Bruins rank No. 1 in the league (62.13). In the CORSI-against, B’s opponents average 49.66 — the third-best number in the league.
If your eyes haven’t glassed over from the statistics, these numbers are very revealing about a team has actually played quite well on offense and defense.
Except, of course, for actually shooting pucks into the net. Alas, in the goalsfor-per-game category — actually finishing good opportunities — the B’s rank 23rd in the NHL, averaging a paltry 2.48 goals per game.
Julien has a lot to do with how the Bruins play, but he can’t shoot the puck for them.