Firing won’t change team’s performance

The Bruins have not been an underachieving hockey team this season, as much as Cam Neely and Don Sweeney might believe that to be the case.

The Bruins have been an overachieving club, better than the talent on its roster indicated it should be.

There’s a very good chance the B’s will miss the playoffs for the third successive season. But just the fact they’ve stayed in the running for a postseason berth, and could still conceivably sneak in, is a testimony most of all to one person: Claude Julien.

Indeed, in his decade as coach of the Bruins, which came to an end with his firing yesterday, Julien always was the No. 1 reason the team was as good as it was. And that includes the year the B’s won the Stanley Cup (2010-11), though goalie Tim Thomas provided the otherworldly performance that also was required.

The B’s have long relied on special goaltending, from Thomas and Tuukka Rask, on the cornerstone defense of Zdeno Chara and the two-way excellence of Patrice Bergeron. These guys, and others, have been critical in executing Julien’s game, making the Bruins a team often described by opposing coaches and players as the most structured in the NHL and one of the hardest to play against.

Make no mistake: The B’s during the past 10 years never have been the most talented team in the league, far from it. But because of the on-ice system Julien and his assistants stressed, the team almost always was competitive.

Not everyone in Boston, or in the front office, understands that. Club president Neely made it clear he doesn’t agree.

“I believe that we have a better team than our results to date show,” Neely said.

Well, OK, maybe he’s right. Now he’ll no longer be able to claim the B’s are underachieving. Maybe the team will prove him right and suddenly take off under interim head coach Bruce (Butch) Cassidy.

Or maybe Neely will realize Julien was not given a roster with the talent and depth required to get a playoff spot. And now it also will lack the coach who’s long made this team more respectable than it probably deserved to be.

The Bruins started down their current path of mediocrity when they fired general manager Peter Chiarelli, who made mistakes, yes, but should have been given the chance to fix them. The highly competitive Neely wanted more power in the hockey ops decisions, and in deposing Chiarelli, he got it. Now he owns it.

So does Sweeney, who is wise in insisting he’ll stay patient with the ongoing youth movement, and this felt like a change for the sake of a change.

“I think there is an opportunity for a new set of eyes to come in, and a new voice for our players to sort of start to hear,” Sweeney said. “The expectations have not changed for this organization. We expect the players to make a push and get into the playoffs.”

Brad Marchand seemed sorry to see Julien go.

“He’s a phenomenal coach,” the B’s winger said. “We were very fortunate to have him here for as long as we did. . . . Just because this happened doesn’t mean we’re all of a sudden going to be a great team. We need everyone to be better. This is a wake-up call that we need everyone to start doing their jobs. We haven’t had that so far.”

And that’s a mighty tough team for anyone to coach.