Jarvis May Be Missing Piece To Puzzle

Boston Bruins general manager, Peter Chiarelli, announced Wednesday that the team has hired Doug Jarvis as the newest assistant coach on head coach Claude Julien’s staff. Jarvis joins Doug Houda and Geoff  Ward keeping the number of assistants at three as it has been throughout Julien’s tenure in Boston.

Jarvis had a record breaking career in the NHL. He was drafted 24^th overall in the 1975 NHL Entry Draft by the Toronto Maple Leafs and was traded to the Montreal Canadiens. The centerman never played a game with the Leafs. Jarvis played in 964 regular season games during a 13 year career that also included stops in Washington and Hartford. The most impressive thing about his playing in those 964 games is that he played in every game he could have possibly played in during his career; making Jarvis the NHL’s all time ironman. His 964 consecutive games played is an NHL record. Many agree this record may never be broken. He added 105 Stanley Cup playoff games to his resume, as well. While playing in those 105 playoff games, he added 4 Stanley Cup championships to that resume. Doug Jarvis’ name is on the Frank J. Selke trophy. He was awarded that for being the best defensive forward in the NHL in 1984. In 1987, he was the recipient of the William Masterton Trophy for his qualities of perseverance, sportsmanship, and dedication to hockey. Indeed, a very impressive playing career.

Jarvis joined the coaching staff of the Minnesota North Stars and remained on the staff when the Stars pulled up stakes and moved to Dallas. He spent 14 years with the Stars, winning his first Stanley Cup as a coach and fifth overall of his hockey career in 1999. After his tenure with the Stars, he signed on with the organization that gave him his start as a player; he took over the reigns of the Canadiens American Hockey League affiliate, the Hamilton Bulldogs in 2003. In 2 seasons as Hamilton’s head coach, Jarvis’ teams compiled a record of 79-54-10-17. He was promoted to associate head coach in Montreal in 2005 serving until the conclusion of 2009. While with Les Canadiens, the club made three playoff appearances and finished the 2007-2008 season with the best record in the Eastern Conference.

Doug Jarvis will be just as important to the Bruins as any new player who has been brought in to help improve the organization’s chances of winning the Stanley Cup. His experience, as a player, will be invaluable as he will, not only, show the team’s veteran players what it takes to win a Cup but also to help the young players and rookies persevere through a long season and prepare for the second season. He and Claude Julien have a history together as he served under Julien in Montreal in 2005.

Julien addressed the media via telephone and is very excited to have Jarvis join his staff.

“I want to tell you how thrilled we are to have Doug Jarvis join our staff,” Julien said. “I think when the job became available, the one thing we wanted to do was replace some of the experience we lost with Craig Ramsay. Having known Doug for a while, having worked with him briefly in Montreal, his experience in coaching and playing was very valuable in our decision-making.”

“The fact that he is a very loyal — and not just loyal to the head coach, but also loyal to the cause in which he believes our team is a good candidate to win the Stanley Cup and would like to be part of it,” Julien said. “When he showed some interest in wanting to join the staff, it was something that really excited us because of all of those reasons.”

“He knows a lot about the game,” Julien said. “You look at how long he has coached and he’s been through a lot. He knows the situations and how to deal with them. You can see that and I was able to see that firsthand. I had him in Montreal and really enjoyed his loyalty and dedication. He’s one of those guys that will work hard and won’t be counting the hours as far as what needs to be done. People that do that are very passionate people and Doug is passionate about his job.

“He’s got a wealth of Stanley Cup championships as a player and as a coach, and that becomes valuable when you have a fairly young team.”

“We had good chemistry and I know for a fact that Doug coming into our situation, with the coaching staff being there since I’ve been here, he’s going to blend in perfectly. He’s got that personality and I think it will be a smooth transition.

“There’s a lot of great coaches out there but there’s certain coaches you feel you have great chemistry with, and Doug fit into that category.”

Julien’s words sum it up. Doug Jarvis is the right man for this job. For the players, he is a fresh face, a new voice. There will be no reason for anyone to say when/if the team hits a bad patch during the 2010-2011 season that the players will have turned off the coaches due to familiarity. Doug Jarvis, the NHL’s ironman, may just be that missing piece of the Stanley Cup puzzle that management has been looking for