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Neely: Bruins' Next GM Will Decide Claude Julien's Job Status

BOSTON (CBS) -- After failing to reach the NHL playoffs, the Boston Bruins decided to make a change. It came in the form of firing general manager Peter Chiarelli on Wednesday.

With regard to head coach Claude Julien, team president Cam Neely said that the next general manager will decide the coach's fate.

"We met with Claude this morning and we told him that we really believe that once we got through the exhaustive search to find a general manager, we will leave it up to that GM to decide what he wants to do with our coaching staff," Neely said.

For Julien's part, the eight-year coach of the Bruins hopes to remain with the team.

"We told him the situation and we asked him, and he said, 'I signed a contract to coach here, I want to coach here.' He made that clear when he left [the building]," Neely said of Julien. "We had planned to meet with him in the next couple of days, to sit down and talk to him about this past season. So that's next on our agenda with Claude."

Neely spoke alongside team CEO Charlie Jacobs on Wednesday afternoon. The duo opted to keep private most of their reasons for firing Chiarelli, instead choosing to repeat many times that they were trying to "improve the club moving forward."

"It was really about how do we improve our club moving forward? It's a task, frankly an audit, that we take every year," Jacobs said. "Out of respect for Peter, I'd rather not get into the mire of day-to-day transactions or any things that we may or may not have agreed with, other than saying we felt this was best."

HURLEY: B's Right To Fire Chiarelli, But Success Should Define GM's Tenure

Neely said that he expects Chiarelli to be remembered for being the first Bruins GM to win a Stanley Cup after a 39-year drought. However, decisions since then led to this week's firing.

"There's a number of things that have happened throughout the course of the year and throughout the course of the tenure, I think myself and Charlie and ownership would probably evaluate," Neely said. "I can appreciate the fact that our fans would probably like us to get a little more specific as to why, but we believe that we needed the decision moving forward to help improve the hockey club. I don't want to take away anything that Peter accomplished here.

"It was a very difficult conclusion to come up with," Neely added. "We had numerous conversations about where we felt the direction of the franchise was going and where we felt we'd like to see the franchise go. Clearly, Peter had a lot of success so it wasn't a decision that we took lightly."

As for whether the Bruins will look for internal or external candidates to replace Chiarelli, Neely and Jacobs wouldn't tip their hat one way or the other.

"Both," Neely said. "We're going to take our time and go through the process and make sure we make a decision that is best for the organization."

Jacobs added that the team will be "finding the best candidate. Period."

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