One of the things Boston coach Claude Julien likes about his own Bruins team, he also sees in his first-round opponents, the Detroit Red Wings.
That thing? Layers.
Layers?
Yes, layers.
“They play the same way they’ve played forever,” Julien said of the Wings, per the Toronto Sun. “They’ve replaced their injured players with pretty good young ones. The injuries have allowed those young players to develop.
“They move the puck around. They have a good defensive game. They have layers.”
What does Julien mean by layers? Well, here’s what he said last June while the Bruins were shutting down the Penguins in the Eastern Conference Final:
“I think it’s pretty obvious that we have layers. Our guys are committed to come back and just making sure that there’s layer after layer that make it hard for them to get to our net.”
Julien and Wings coach Mike Babcock know each other well, as both were on Team Canada’s coaching staff at the Sochi Olympics.
They’ve probably had a lot of good chats about layers.