"Or you’re gonna what, fire me? On an $80,000 day?"

Obviously, Lamoriello deserves a pretty high benefit of the doubt, but his firing of Claude Julien with 102 points and counting is just bizarre. I really can’t think of any non-Devil precedent for the coach of a very successful team being fired this late in the season. Even Steinbrenner didn’t fire his manaagers in the last week of pennant-winning seasons (although whether you would survive until next May was another matter.) The obvious precedent is Lamoriello’s own firing of Ftorek, but I don’t think it was quite this late, and Ftorek and well-known issues with his players. And Esposito fired Michel Bergeron with 2 games left, but that team was barely over .500, and Esposito was a walking punchline as a G.M. It’s very strange.