NHL:The Montreal Canadiens make a coaching move that shocks hockey world

As the NHL season winds down in a few weeks, it seems that the Montreal Canadiens will have a new coach leading them. In a surprising move, the Montreal Canadiens fired head coach Michael Therrien after he was with the organization for the last five years. Once they fired him, it wouldn’t take long for them to find his replacement as they would end up hiring Claude Julien, who was recently fired by the Boston Bruins a week ago.

[Jon]

This move is having the hockey world scratch their heads, as it makes zero sense. The Canadiens are in prime position to make the playoffs. However, one possible reason for the change in Montreal is that they have been trending downwards as of late. While they are 31-19-8 for 70 points, the Ottawa Sentators, who are in second place, only trail the Canadiens by six points and have five games in hand. Unfortunately, the Canadians have gone 18-18-7 after starting off the season with a record of 13-1-1. Some could make the argument that the writing was on the wall for the Canadiens head coach less than 48 hours after Julien was fired by Boston. All of sudden, Canadiens front office had a meeting without the head coach and five days later Claude Julien is the new head coach of the team.

It should be noted that this is not the first time Michael Therrien was fired by a team in the matter that the Canadiens did. Close to eight years ago, he was fired by the Pittsburgh Penguins after getting not great returns from the team that won the conference the prior season. They would end up hiring Dan Bylsma and he would turn the team around very fast that they would win the 2009 Stanley Cup. While the Canadiens are not in the same position as the 2009 Penguins, they will more than likely benefit from Claude Julien. This is Claude Julien’s second stint with the Canadiens.