The Canadiens have fired Michel Therrien and have named Claude Julien, the recently fired coach of the Bruins, as his replacement.
“I would like to sincerely thank Michel for his relentless work with the Montreal Canadiens over his eight seasons behind the bench, including the last five seasons when we worked together,” general manager Marc Bergevin said Tuesday.
“The decision to remove Michel from his coaching duties was a difficult one because I have lots of respect for him. I came to the conclusion that our team needed a new energy, a new voice, a new direction. Claude Julien is an experienced and well respected coach with a good knowledge of the Montreal market. Claude has been very successful as an NHL coach and he won the Stanley Cup. Today we hired the best available coach, and one of the league’s best. I am convinced that he has the capabilities to get our team back on the winning track.”
The Canadiens are in first place in the Atlantic Division of the Eastern Conference with 31-19-8 record. They’re coming off a 4-0 loss to the Bruins on Sunday and don’t play again until Saturday.
Julien was just fired last week as coach of the Bruins, with whom he won the Stanley Cup in 2011 and was the longest-tenured coach until last week.
This is the second time the Canadiens have fired Therrien and replaced him with Julien. The same thing happened 46 games into the 2002-03 season. Julien ended up coaching there from 2003 to ’06.
Therrien was in his fifth season of his second tour of duty as Canadiens coach. They missed the playoffs last season after goaltender Carey Price injured his knee in November.
They are 1-5-1 in February, with their .214 points percentage in the month ranking 28th out of 30 teams.
The Bruins are six points behind the Canadiens in the Atlantic. The teams do not play again this regular season.
Information from The Associated Press was used in this report.
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