Question that would be rhetorical except that it is not:
In what world would a team allow its just-fired, universally respected coach to be hired within a week by not only a blood rival, but one that it could very well meet in the playoffs?
Answer:
In the world of Jeremy Jacob$, the Boston owner who allowed Claude Julien to skip to Montreal so the B’s wouldn’t be on the hook for the approximately $1.5 million due on his contract for this season. And that $1.5M? Wouldn’t that be less than the value of a single home playoff gate?
Please don’t suggest that the Bruins granted Julien permission to go to the Habs because of their respect for him. There were other places for Julien to go and would have been still more for the 2011 Cup winner to land this offseason.
The Rangers respect Alain Vigneault plenty, but had they dismissed the coach in the middle of this season, there is no earthly chance their ownership/management would have allowed him to go to the Islanders to replace Jack Capuano if permission had been sought.
So anyway, Julien, snapped up and signed to a five-year deal worth a believed $5M per by Montreal GM Marc Bergevin following the dismissal of Michel Therrien, led the faltering Canadiens into the Garden on Tuesday to face the Rangers in what would be a preview of the first round of the tournament if both teams stay where they are in the standings.
The Rangers can’t say so, and the players cannot afford to think so, but remaining in fourth place in the Metro and thus capturing the first wild-card seed is preferable to moving up to the second or third and becoming trapped in the Washington-Pittsburgh-Columbus gauntlet.
Prior to this game against Montreal, the Blueshirts were two points behind the Jackets and three points behind the Penguins, all with 24 games remaining on the schedule, which includes a pair of Rangers-Pittsburgh matches at the Garden over the final 10 days, including the April 9 season finale. Just try to imagine what that one will be like if the winner gets third place and the loser gets fourth.
Meanwhile, the Canadiens’ 1-6-1 slide that extends back to 6-11-2 beginning Jan. 9 has imperiled the Atlantic Division lead they’ve held from the get-go, in bolting to a 9-0-1 (and 13-1-1) getaway. Indeed, the Senators have moved within two points of the Habs while the Panthers and Bruins are four back, Ottawa holding one game in hand and Florida with one more to game to play.
So, actually, “Mr. Jacobs” didn’t only allow Julien to take over a team the Bruins could conceivably meet in the first round, the chairman of the Board of Governors allowed Julien to take over a team that might keep his own team out of the tournament entirely.
Respect!
Montreal’s tenuous hold on a playoff spot doesn’t allow the Habs to play mind games about which seed is preferable, even though finishing second or third in the Atlantic presents the promise of a favorable first-round matchup as opposed to winning the division and thus drawing the Metro fourth-place crossover. But still. Quite a system, isn’t it, when finishing lower in the standing offers a theoretically easier route to the conference finals?
The Canadiens had played one game under Julien before coming to New York, a 3-1 defeat to the Jets in Montreal in their first game off the bye week. Vigneault is very close with Therrien, even if the men feuded publicly during the 2014 Eastern Conference semifinal won by the Rangers in six that featured the Chris Kreider-Carey Price and Brandon Prust-Derek Stepan incidents. Vigneault and Julien exchanged public volleys last year after Brad Marchand kneed Henrik Lundqvist in the head; something about a favorite son, and all that.
But there was nary an untoward word from the New York coach on Tuesday morning.
“I know Claude real well and I know Michel real well, and I think they’re both good coaches,” Vigneault said. “Claude will bring in his identity, but I thought they were coached real well before. That’s not going to change for me.”
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