"We had a real young team," recalled Bobby Allen, the Bruins defenseman who played a year-plus in Hamilton. "He could handle the young guys and keep everybody happy. It was a really good team. We should have won the Calder Cup. Everybody bought into the team concept. That started from the leadership, right from the top."
The Bruins will hold a press conference at TD Banknorth Garden today at 10:30 a.m., where they are expected to name Julien as Dave Lewis's replacement, continuing their carousel of coaches (three in general manager Peter Chiarelli's year-plus regime), with the latest being someone who lasted less than a season in his previous job.
But Allen, in speaking about his former coach, dispelled two notions that have dogged Julien since his shorter-than-expected stay with the New Jersey Devils: that he's a trap-crazed drone who isn't tough on his players.
Last season, the Devils played their usual style, gumming up the neutral zone, playing safe on offense, and relying on goalie Martin Brodeur to clean up anything that got through.
On April 2, GM Lou Lamoriello fired his coach and took over the bench amid theories that Julien wasn't being tough enough with his players, shelving his whip when it should have been cracked. These two characteristics fly in the face of Chiarelli's post-Lewis comments about needing a coach who prefers an aggressive style and can hold his players accountable.
However, Allen said that in Hamilton, Julien promoted a go-go approach, giving his players freedom to make plays.
"I've got nothing but good things to say about Claude," said Allen, who played in Hamilton after being traded from the Bruins to Edmonton for defenseman Sean Brown March 19, 2002. "People think that he's a passive coach. But that's more about the system that's played in New Jersey. In Hamilton, he was all-out aggressive. He coached with a lot of energy. All the guys loved him. We liked his systems. He kept things loose in the dressing room."
