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NATIONAL HOCKEY LEAGUE MEDIA CONFERENCEJanuary 16, 2009Claude JulienTodd McLellanDAVID KEON: Welcome to today's call. With us we have the head coaches for the 57th National Hockey League All-Star Game that will be played January 25th at the Bell Center in Montreal at 6:00 p.m. on CBC, RDS, Versus and NHL Radio. Claude Julien will be behind the Eastern Conference bench and has guided the Boston Bruins to first place in the overall NHL standings with a record of 33-7-4 for 70 points. In his first season as an NHL head coach, Todd McClellan will be behind the Western Conference bench and has guided the San Jose Sharks to first place in the Western Conference with a record of 32-6-5 for 69 points, trailing Boston by one point in the overall standings. Thanks to Claude and Todd for joining us today. Q. Coach Julien, I wonder what the emotion will be for you to not only coach in an All-Star Game but to do it in Montreal where you coached a few years and where you left abruptly? And what would it be like to have some guys that you you coached in your starting lineup who played for Montreal, still? CLAUDE JULIEN: I think everything will be great. This is a city where I really enjoyed coaching. Again, with the coaching carousels, every once in a while you've got to move around. But it's been great. There's no animosity there at all. For me, it's a pleasure to go back. Not just to Montreal, but also to represent the Bruins and the fact that I'm probably going to be hooking up there with some of the players that I've coached. It's great. It's great to see those guys again. There's always a good relationships that get built between players and coaches over the course of the years. I think just having an opportunity to put everything aside for a couple of days and taking time to enjoy it is going to be great for me. Q. What do you rate this in terms of achievements in your career? Going from where you started in junior and now you're coaching an All-Star Game in the NHL? CLAUDE JULIEN: I think the thing that you have to keep in mind here is that you're there because of the people around you. As I've mentioned often, if it's not for the players, your coaching staff doing such a great job. You don't get that honor just because of your individual work. You get that honor because of the work that people around you have done and helped you along the way. The way I look at it is I'm representing the Boston Bruins, and not necessarily representing myself. Q. I just want to talk about your Windsor days. It was obviously a long time ago, but I understand you still have quite a few friends in town, and I just wondered how you think your time in Windsor impacted you as a player and a coach? CLAUDE JULIEN: Oh, there's no doubt. Everything in your life when you're playing hockey whether it's a player or coaching, there's always something that impacts you. I was there in the days when Wayne Cashman was a coach. And definitely a coach that got the most out of his players. We were a character team. And I think I grew as a player there. And everywhere you stop, you take a little bit from everybody. There's a lot of things I liked from different coaches, and a lot of things I've seen from different players. You take a little bit from everything. At the same time, you try to build your own identity. But Windsor was definitely a place I enjoyed. But I still come back every once in a while to visit friends. Q. Why is San Jose playing better than Detroit this season? TODD MCLELLAN: I don't know if San Jose is. We're competing right there with them. I still believe Detroit is the team to beat in the National Hockey League, with all due respect to Claude's team and to our team here in San Jose. Obviously, the Calgary Flames are playing well. But they have an aura about them. They believe in themselves. They believe they can repeat as champions. It will be a tough task for anybody to knock them off. But at this moment as far as our hockey club goes, we've had a really good start. We've harnessed some of the early season energy, and we're able to get out of the gate quickly. Our confidence grew, and now it's about maintaining our game. And tomorrow night we've got the Red Wings here. It will be a big task for us. But right now I still believe Detroit is the team to beat. Are the Sharks playing better than them? I don't necessarily agree with that. Q. Douglas Murray has a lot of fans here in Sweden. What can you say about him and his season so far? TODD MCLELLAN: Douglas is a huge part of our success and our future moving forward. He's a big, physical defenseman. He provides that element of abrasiveness around our net. He's certainly not the smoothest with the puck, but we don't ask him to do that. We want him to play within his own means. He provides us that physical element and a real important part of our hockey club. Q. Julien, what lies behind Boston's success this season compared to last season? CLAUDE JULIEN: Obviously, it's a little bit more experience. I guess for the first part until lately it was obviously the health issue with our team. We remain pretty healthy for the most of the year so far until, as I mentioned, the last few weeks we've had guys go down. But we've had a lot of guys grow through adversity last year. We've had some young players put into situations that they normally wouldn't have been going through had there not been injuries last year. And I think with the acceleration and their progress has certainly shown this year and taken advantage of it. But we've added a few players as well that's kind of stabilized our team even more, and given us a little bit more scoring. Right now we've had most of our players playing pretty good hockey. You know, as Todd mentioned also, this is a situation where it's just half the season. And most people don't remember how you start, they remember how you finish. We've got another task ahead of us, and probably a tougher one, and we look forward to the challenge. Q. P.J. Axelsson been with the Bruins for a few years now. What's he contribute to the team? CLAUDE JULIEN: With the amount of time he's been with the Bruins, and the respect he's gained from his teammates he's been a great leader for us on and off the ice. I think his anticipation of plays and he reads the play well. He's a smart player. We use him a lot in penalty killing situations. We've been using him a lot on the power play as well because of injuries. He's a smart player that can make plays. So he brings a little of everything to our team. But most of all, I think we've appreciated his leadership qualities especially this year. Q. Sorry to go so local, but if you look back at the 2002-03 season, you guys coached respectively the best two teams in the NHL, and Claude, you got your job in Montreal. And I wondered if you could comment on that year, and what you remember of the Calder Cup? And did that season seem to impact your careers as much as it looks like from the outside? TODD MCLELLAN: I know from my perspective in Houston, it was a tremendous year. I really believed the two top teams ended up playing in that Calder Cup final, and it was a heck of a series. Claude did a tremendous job in growing that team, and he had the opportunity to leave. And Jeff Ward who is with him now took that Hamilton team right to the finals. So their coaching staff did a tremendous job and Hamilton, and a number of those players have gone on to play in the National League. When you revert back to the Houston team again, it was a young team with veteran leadership. A number of those players have made impact in the Minnesota Wild organization. The series itself was incredible. It was extremely fast, skilled hockey. I remember the sellout in Hamilton in the final game. It was the last game played that year. I think the Stanley Cup had been awarded the night before. Just a real thriller. Did it impact my career? I believe it did. It was the first opportunity to win a championship as a head coach. Certainly it's something that I revert back to on a daily basis here in San Jose about some of those experiences and how we handled ourselves. CLAUDE JULIEN: There's no doubt it was an incredible year. As you mentioned, I ended up leaving halfway through. And I guess as great as it was to go to Montreal, you always have a little bit of regret not having the opportunity to finish your job. So I really felt confident that our team was capable of challenging for that cup, and, you know, I actually attended Game 7, which Todd alluded to earlier, it was a sellout crowd. Something we hadn't seen in Hamilton for years, and I don't think it ever happened in the American Hockey League and in Hamilton itself. But it was a great game. I think Todd's team was just on top of their game. It was really the better team that night. Certainly was a fun year for me. Obviously a great year as far as my personal career was concerned. Got the opportunity to move up to the NHL. DAVID KEON: Thank you very much, guys, for joining us. Good luck between now and All-Star. And we look forward to seeing you in Montreal. End of FastScripts |
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