BOSTON — You can take the coach out of the city, but you can’t take the coach out of the … coach.
High on Claude Julien’s priority list on the morning of his first appearance at TD Garden since the Bruins fired him last Feb. 7 wasn’t how visitors get into the building, or how he’d react to an approaching video tribute. It was faceoffs.
"I understand that not having the last change is [...]
BOSTON — You can take the coach out of the city, but you can’t take the coach out of the … coach.
High on Claude Julien’s priority list on the morning of his first appearance at TD Garden since the Bruins fired him last Feb. 7 wasn’t how visitors get into the building, or how he’d react to an approaching video tribute. It was faceoffs.
“I understand that not having the last change is an even bigger challenge for a coach,” said the Canadiens coach, who didn’t have two full-time centers available for Wednesday night’s game. “We’re going to try and hopefully make the best decisions possible.”
Julien, hired by the Habs for the second time in his career one week after the B’s replaced him with Bruce Cassidy, talked about how it felt to return to the Garden, and what he thought about the team and players he left behind, but he wouldn’t get into whether he’d still be working in Boston if he had the team Cassidy has now.
“We can dissect it all we want,” Julien said, “but I don’t think it’s the right thing to do. I think you move on.”
Not completely, though. Julien said he and the players he coached in Boston — especially members of the Bruins' 2011 Stanley Cup championship team — have stayed in touch, and will always share a bond.
“You don’t win a Cup and all of a sudden disappear from each other’s lives,” he said. “It’s been said before: It lasts forever, and I think I’ve had the proof of that in what’s happened to me, just in the last year. [Bruins] players were texting me after the game, the last time we played [last Saturday, when the B’s won the first Cassidy-Julien matchup in a shootout, 4-3].”
Julien is impressed by the Bruins, who sit in second place in the Atlantic Division — four positions and 14 points above Julien’s Canadiens entering Wednesday’s game.
“They made some room for young players to come in, and they cleaned up some [personnel] situations here in the last year,” Julien said. “They allowed some of their young guys to grow in the minors … and their leadership group is still the same. They tweaked certain things, and they’re trying to play with a pretty good pace.
“Sometimes it’s about bounces, sometimes it’s about certain teams making certain adjustments. It could be personnel-related ... but at the end of the day, in the standings, there’s a bit of a difference there.”
Celebrating O'Ree's debut
Willie O’Ree, the black player who broke the NHL’s color barrier when he played for the Bruins against the Canadiens 60 years ago on Thursday, had his anniversary recognized by the Bruins, the NHL and the City of Boston before Wednesday’s game. NHL commissioner Gary Bettman presented O’Ree with the official score sheets from his Jan. 18, 1958, debut. (The B’s won at the Forum, 3-0, but were routed in the next night’s rematch at Boston Garden, 6-2.) Boston Mayor Marty Walsh proclaimed Thursday Willie O’Ree Day and O’Ree dropped a ceremonial first puck before Wednesday’s game.
O’Ree, 22 at the time of his call-up from the minor-league Quebec Aces, didn’t realize the call-up was historic. He was just excited to play his first NHL game.
“Coach Milt Schmidt and general manager Lynn Patrick sat me down and said, ‘Willie … go out, just play your game, and the Bruins organization is behind you 100 percent,” O’Ree said. “I didn’t realize I broke the color barrier until I read it in the paper the next day."
O’Ree, who’ll have a street hockey rink named in his honor in the Allston-Brighton neighborhood this summer, returned to the minors after that January weekend in 1958, and didn’t make it back to Boston until the 1960-61 season, when he had four goals and 14 points over his last 43 NHL games. He played professionally through 1978-79, and has worked for the NHL as a diversity ambassador since 1988.
Around the boards
The Bruins announced that Rene Rancourt, their primary national anthem singer since 1975-76, will retire at the end of this season…Ex-Bruin defenseman Joe Morrow (26 games, 3-4--7) was among the Canadiens’ healthy scratches…Phillip Danault (suspected concussion), struck by a Zdeno Chara shot on Saturday, missed his second game.