EDMONTON – Peter Chiarelli was the general manager that hired head coach Claude Julien in Boston, and put him in place to enjoy an excellent run over the last nine years running the bench for the Original Six franchise. So it was jarring to see Chiarelli and Julien have some public differences in opinions on the roster last season, and interesting that the longtime coach ended up surviving for another season when Chiarelli was fired last April.
It’s also intriguing that the Bruins will face Chiarelli’s Edmonton Oilers for the first time on Wednesday night at Rexall Place, but Julien said there won’t be any extra incentive, or feeling, on his end going against his former boss. Instead Julien intimated that there was no animosity between Chiarelli and members of the Bruins after he was relieved of his duties, though it’s obvious the coach can only really speak for himself.
“It’s pretty simple. I’m with the Boston Bruins and my goal is to win this game tomorrow. I’m sure he’s thinking the same thing from his end there. There’s no animosity . . . not between Peter, and I think, and myself or the Boston Bruins,” said Julien. “It’s one of those things that happened, and you move on. Basically I haven’t looked at it any further than that. I’m really just focused on having a good road trip here, and not just this game but all three of them.
“That’s where my focus has been. It’s not so much about coming back and facing my ex-general manager. I don’t think the focus is actually on that at all. I think the players already appreciated Peter as well, so there are no bad feelings there also.”
Similarly, Patrice Bergeron said on Monday that with all due respect he was much more concerned about the players on the ice than the people sitting in the Edmonton executive’s box on Wednesday night.
“When you’re on the ice you’re not really thinking about [that]," Bergeron said when asked about facing Chiarelli’s team. "We know Peter [did] a great job here, and now he’s over there trying to rebuild that franchise with a lot of talent. So that’s definitely going to be a tough game [against the Oilers].”
Tough because of the young talent on Edmonton’s roster that is, and not because of any lingering hard feelings over Chiarelli’s very brief tenure as an unemployed general manager last spring.