But in hindsight, it turned out there was no better man to lead the charge toward a Stanley Cup than Julien.
“I’m very, very pleased with what he’s done,’’ owner Jeremy Jacobs said. “I think one of the greatest terms in leadership is you have to be predictable. Claude is predictable. You know how he’s going to work. You know he’s going to work hard. You know he’s going to want you to perform. That’s important. He’s very simple. He’s very direct. But he sure gets the job done.’’
Julien had plenty of help. He leaned on trusted assistants Geoff Ward, Doug Houda, Doug Jarvis, and Bob Essensa. He huddled regularly with general manager Peter Chiarelli. He often looked to captain Zdeno Chara and alternates Mark Recchi and Patrice Bergeron to gauge how the players were doing and the mood of the dressing room.
The critical decisions during the playoffs — pairing Chara with Dennis Seidenberg, mixing and matching Rich Peverley and Michael Ryder on the first line, dressing Shawn Thornton for Game 3 of the Cup Final to give the fourth line the identity it was missing — weren’t all because of Julien’s brainstorming. But like all coaches, Julien had to make the final calls.
More often than not, they were right.
“You make those adjustments,’’ Julien said. “Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn’t. It worked for us this year and gave us what we wanted.’’
Among other things, Julien’s critics called him stubborn. The wails were loudest when Julien rolled four lines and didn’t shake up his power-play units. But Julien’s actions reflected two things: confidence in his game plan and an open mind in what his accomplices had to say.
The man believed of being bull-headed has, in reality, been quite accommodating to advice.
