As if scripted, the Maple Leafs came out flying and within the first five minutes of the third period, the Bruins found themselves suddenly clinging to a one-goal lead, with momentum clearly shifted to the Toronto bench.
Right after the second Leafs goal, Julien decided it was time to take a breather and hopefully slow down the buzzing Leafs. The move worked as the Bruins calmed down the tempo and slowly grabbed some momentum back until completely regaining it when Mark Recchi scored a huge power-play goal with 2:37 left in regulation, giving the Bruins a 4-2 lead.
“We all saw that coming,’’ Zdeno Chara said referring to Julien’s timeout. “Obviously, he’s an experienced coach, so when he called time out, it was time. We knew what we needed — a rebirth and getting back to our game.’’
Julien said after that he simply wanted to prevent his squad from spiraling out of control.
“It was about settling them down and making sure we didn’t panic,’’ he said.
Many times, it seems, NHL coaches are hesitant to call a timeout in such situations. Instead, they tend to reserve such a move for when the team is trailing or trying to hold onto a slim lead in the final minutes. But for Julien, it is more about instinct and reading the moment, regardless of the time on the clock.
“To me it’s a feel of the game,” Julien said. “Sometimes we call them because there’s an icing call and you’ll look sometimes and think ‘well there’s going to be a timeout the next whistle, but there may not be that whistle, and then you don’t get that chance to call one and the puck may end up in your net before the next timeout.”
Timeouts for Julien can serve many purposes as well. Whether it is a breather or simply a mental regrouping.
“If the guys are exhausted and you feel it’s an important time to call it and save momentum, then you call it,” Julien said. “So I think a lot of it is about feel. You can be questioned at times and people say, ‘Why is he calling that timeout?’ But it’s more about [when] you’re behind the bench and you see what’s going on, on your bench and on the ice, and you're close to the action.”
In the case of the Toronto game, it was as he pointed out before, a move made to calm the storm.
“Last night it was more about, we just had to settle down there,” Julien said. “It wasn’t about telling them wake up or screaming at them. It was just let’s settle down here. We know what we have to do and let’s start doing it. At the same time, you hope that you slow down the other team’s momentum and obviously that next shift after the timeout has to work in your favor, you got to try and grab that momentum back.”
