Fantasy Impact: The Canadiens have fired Michel Therrien and hired Claude Julien.

Therrien has been a successful coach for many years but for the second straight season, the Canadiens got off to a hot start and then tanked the rest of the way. Last year this had a lot to do with Carey Price’s injury. This year, it’s had a lot to do with Price’s ineffective play.

Price’s numbers since January 1: 6-9-1, 3.12 GAA, 0.898 SV%

As always, things have to hit unsustainable lows for a coach to be fired. How many coaches have we now seen hang because of this sort of goaltending? Julien was fired just last week as Tuukka Rask’s numbers match what Price had done since January 1 and Boston’s backups were no better all season. A coach doesn’t have much control over goaltender performance but it would be foolish to blame what ails these two teams completely on goaltending.

More importantly, Price is an elite goaltender, we expect he’ll get back to that level.

It will be interesting to see how Julien manages player usage in Montreal. In Boston, he leaned heavily on dependable veterans like Patrice Bergeron and Brad Marchand but he found roles and minutes for youngsters who showed skills like Brandon Carlo, David Pastrnak and Frank Vatrano. It took a few years for Pastrnak to earn Julien’s trust but he broke out once that trust was earned. And Boston had become depleted of depth. It is Julien’s preference to roll four lines but he can only do that if he has the talent. There is more depth available in Montreal but we should still expect he’ll lean on veterans like Alexander Radulov and Max Pacioretty. Those two are unimpeachable.

The biggest question here is Alex Galchenyuk, the supremely talented young centerman with defensive questions. Fans would like to see Galchenyuk in a #1 center role but Therrien and the Habs front office seemed confused over whether or not he was even responsible enough to play the center position.

Galchenyuk has seen only 16 minutes of ice time per game for three years running, and has never consistently been used as a #1 power play option. This is puzzling usage. If you don’t think Galchenyuk is good enough defensively then you should at least use him like crazy on the power play. Neither happened and he has bounced between center and wing for years. I’m not sure how he would be expected to find a foothold with this kind of inconsistency.

There are no guarantees that Julien will bring any such consistency to Galchenyuk’s usage but if I were Marc Bergevin interviewing a potential new coach, my first question would be about how he intends to use the elite young centerman the predecessor couldn’t ever figure out. Galchenyuk doesn’t need to be the Habs’ #1 centerman to have fantasy value but he needs that #1 PP role.

The Canadiens’ power play ranks eighth in efficiency so they may not need to make any adjustments in that department but we should all be watching closely for Galchenyuk’s usage when the Canadiens return from their bye.

Another player who could use a boost in minutes is the ever-effective Brendan Gallagher. It took years for Julien to lean on Marchand (a similar player in style and efficacy) for more than 15-16 minutes per game. Gallagher has languished around just 15 minutes per game this season after skating 16:35 the previous two seasons. Some of this has to do with injuries as Gallagher has suffered repeated hand breaks knocking him out of the lineup and reducing his efficacy. Gallagher had carved out a decent niche as a net-front guy but it seems he has been relegated to that role on the second PP unit. More minutes would help his cause but it doesn’t seem that the coaching change will get him back into fantasy relevance.

One area that Julien has been excellent is in getting his team to win control of the shot metrics. This is an area where Montreal is already sitting among the best teams in the league. Will he improve this metrics? Or will things hold steady? Also, can he help them clean up their porous penalty kill? A rebound from Price will help in this regard but Julien tightening things up could also help Price regain confidence. I’d be very excited about the potential of this development as a Price owner.

Julien won’t have a ton of time to implement any changes but if his arrival has a similar impact as those of other mid-season coaching swaps then the Canadiens are due for a dead cat bounce as well, which would help across the board. Ultimately, the most fantasy relevant players are still Price, Radulov, Pacioretty, Galchenyuk, Shea Weber and Andrei Markov. Everyone else will only have marginal relevance depending on secondary scoring heating up, which is mostly uncontrollable.

The biggest takeaway from this deal is that the Canadiens made this move rather than making a big trade. Would they do both? That seems a recipe for disarray. When the Penguins made their coaching change last season, the also traded for Trevor Daley two days later but it was another month before they made the splash of swapping David Perron for Carl Hagelin. The Canadiens won’t have that kind of time to see how Julien’s system fits their players. If they do make a trade, they’ll be doing so blindly. 

Julien is a fantastic coach. We knew he wouldn't be out of the game for very long. My only concern is that he jumped back into the fray too soon. Sometimes, time away is what you need to refocus. We'll see how he fairs.