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Sunday, April 10, 2016

Julien Story an Old One but Not an Accurate One

Roger already wrote about this today, and not to cover too much of the same ground, but I want to focus on one line in particular from The CHB's mailed-in column today: "The Bruins have to rebuild and [coach Claude] Julien might not be the guy for a team of youngsters."

The only reason Julien remains the coach today is because his 2010-11 Bruins team won the Stanley Cup. Let's look at that roster:




Five of the top seven scorers were 25 or younger. 

Oh but, you say, the playoffs were all about the veteran experience. Not so fast:



















The top four scorers were all 25 or under, and the median age of the top 15 scorers was 28. In terms of ice time, only two forwards older than 25 averaged 15 or more minutes a game, and the four were all 25 or younger. 

Fast forward to today (see below). The median age of the top 15 is 27. In fact, contrary to what The CHB says, the 2015-16 Bruins' "youth" was barely changed from that of the Cup winners. 



The case could be made that the Julien needs to go. But it's not because the Bruins are too young. It's because they lack sufficient talent. And for that, the blame lies with none other than Cam Neely.





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