Claude Julien trying not to overwhelm Canadiens

NEW YORK – It’s not a voice Max Pacioretty is used to hearing yet.

“My first four years, I had like nine different coaches as a pro,” said the Montreal Canadiens captain. “I had Michel for five years.”

Now he has Claude Julien, who replaced Michel Therrien as head coach last week. He’s coached one game since then, and leads Montreal against the New York Rangers on Tuesday night.

So there hasn’t been a lot of gameplay, but there’s been a lot of practice. And Julien has been careful not to overwhelm his new team as he implements parts of his system into their routine, especially before proof-of-concept has been established in actual games.

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“You don’t want to overwhelm these guys with too much. So you fix a couple of things, find the compete level that you need, and hope that it becomes second nature,” said Julien.

Pacioretty said the learning curve for him is different than some of this teammates, because he’s faced Claude Julien so much over the years. That includes playoff series in which Pacioretty studied notebooks of information on how the Boston Bruins played, and different facets of Julien’s system.

“I’ve played so much against Boston, I know this stuff like the back of my hand. How their ‘D’ play off the rush, how they chase pucks. It’s a little different than how we play, and we haven’t touched on all of it. But I feel like I could almost give a meeting when we touch on the next subject,” he said.

“We’re looking for a comfort level in our system, but not in our game. We know the urgency that we have to play with. The comfort level with the system should come when you turn off your brain and let it come. I do feel much more comfortable after two days of practice. The adjustments that we made are nothing major, but he’s implemented it slowly into different drills.”

So what are the Canadiens working on?

“We’re trying to generate more speed coming out of our end, through the neutral zone. Maybe come up through the middle a little bit more. A clean exit is always more fun for a forward, but you have to work hard defensively to get that clean exit,” Pacioretty said. “Everyone plays so similar. The changes they make are neutral zone, a little bit of D-zone, controlled breakouts, controlled breakouts. It’s stuff that we’ve all seen before.”

It’s also stuff that, fundamentally, they’ve worked on under Therrien. “It’s two different systems between the coaches. But the two coaches are very similar. The changes I’m talking about are very, very minor. If I didn’t say anything, I don’t think it’s stuff anyone would have even picked up on,” said Pacioretty.

So Julien adds little elements in practice. He moves the lines around a bit – like trying to find the right fit for Alex Galchenyuk. He tries to figure out this team as an outsider coming in, rather than having the advantage that Tom Rowe, Mike Yeo, Doug Weight and Bruce Cassidy have had in their new gigs – an intimate familiarity with the personnel.

Julien cited Mike Sullivan taking over the Pittsburgh Penguins last season as another example of promoting from within – perhaps as a reminder to the Montreal faithful that coaching changes in-season can potentially lead to great things.

“I’m just looking at my situation here, trying to make the transition as quickly as possible,” said Julien.

“I can’t tell you how long it’s going to take, but it’s hopefully shorter than long.”

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Greg Wyshynski is a writer for Yahoo Sports. Contact him at puckdaddyblog@yahoo.com or find him on Twitter. His book, TAKE YOUR EYE OFF THE PUCK, is available on Amazon and wherever books are sold.

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