Claude Julien calls out his players, but Habs insider points the finger at him instead.

Julien called out.

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HockeyFeed
Published 5 years ago
Claude Julien calls out his players, but Habs insider points the finger at him instead.
Daniel Lea/CSM/Zuma

There is a lot of finger pointing going on in Montreal right now and not everyone is pointing the finger in the same direction.

The Montreal Canadiens have hit a slump at the worst possible time of the season and are now rapidly seeing their playoff hopes vanish before their very eyes, although they are still not out of the race as of yet. The Habs suffered a very tough loss on Saturday night to a Chicago Blackhawks squad that, while not being a playoff team at this moment, have been one of the hottest teams in the league over their last 20 or so games. Following that loss there were plenty of questions for head coach Claude Julien regarding what went wrong and what could have been done different, but it was Julien's answers that raised some eyebrows.

Julien appeared to throw his players under the bus, implying that some of them may be caving under the pressure of the big moments in a playoff race. 

"It’s certain the goaltender on the other end deserves a lot of credit," said Julien. "Crawford played a heck of a game. But, at the same time, our execution for the majority of the game wasn’t on point. We were sloppy at times, and if it’s related to the pressure it’s definitely not good timing to be having difficulty."

Not everyone was buying that explanation however. There's no question that Blackhawks goaltender Corey Crawford had a dynamite performance as he has so often done against the Canadiens in his home province of Quebec, but some feel that it was Julien who dropped the ball on Saturday night. Habs insider Eric Engels openly questioned whether or not it was Julien who had buckled under the pressure.

From Engels:

Are they tight? You bet. But Julien could’ve loosened the Canadiens up by relying on the players who put them in the race in the first place. He’s done an exceptional job to this point of the season, but he managed Saturday’s game in such a fashion that would only incite one to wonder whether or not the pressure of the situation is getting to him.

Engels points to the fact that players like Max Domi, and Jesperi Kotkaniemi were glued to the bench in the third period in spite of being players who produce offensively and can potentially get you back into a game when you're behind. Instead Julien went with players like Jordan Weal and Nate Thompson, who are not known as goal scorers to say the least, and unsurprisingly they did not produce on the score sheet. 

Who do you feel is to blame? Did the players falter? Or were the right players simply not given a chance?

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