BOSTON (CBS) — Coach Claude Julien won his 500th NHL game Saturday, when the Bruins defeated the Minnesota Wild 4-2.

Hours after the game, the Wild fired their coach Mike Yeo.

The Bruins, however, would be wise to avoid going the same route as the Wild for at least the next several years as Boston attempts to get its organization back on the championship track. Julien overachieves in every department a franchise wants its coach to excel.

Beyond his solid X’s and O’s, Julien has proven to be a master motivator. For all the blame he deserved for the 3-0 collapse against Philadelphia in 2010, Julien deserved 10 times that much credit for getting the Bruins to regroup the next season and then win the Stanley Cup at the end of a path that was littered with road hazards.

Throughout Julien’s nine seasons the Bruins haven proven to be masters at overcoming adversity. Until last season, they were in the playoffs every year. This season, with a roster that features at least two rookies in the defense corps every night, the Bruins are a playoff position and look like they’ll be able to edge out some similarly talent-challenged Eastern Conference competitors for a postseason berth by mid-April.

There’s one area where Julien excels but receives little credit. And his success in this area was evident during the victory against the Wild. Brad Marchand, who started playing for Julien as a 21-year-old, scored the Bruins’ first goal. It was Marchand’s 27th goal of the season and his 19th career shorthanded goal, the most shorthanded goals by anyone since Marchand entered the league in 2009.

David Krejci, who was also 21 when he first became Julien’s pupil, had one goal and one assist in the win. When healthy, Krejci has been perennially among the Bruins’ scoring leaders and has also been an all-purpose two-way threat worthy of his $7.25 million salary-cap charge.

These are offensive talents that developed under Julien. Marchand and Krejci are just two of the specimens that best debunk the myth that young talent and Claude Julien don’t mix.

To play for Julien, and in turn to play for the Bruins (whether Peter Chiarelli or Don Sweeney is general manager), and in turn to play for any Stanley-Cup caliber team in the NHL, offensive talents have to put in the effort to play at both ends of the rink. It takes a while for some, even Marchand and Krejci, to become expert at two-way play and earn the trust of Julien and his staff. When the process is through, though, these players are both productive and championship-driven.

The list of young players Julien has groomed into top talents goes beyond Marchand and Krejci. Milan Lucic joined the Bruins as a 19-year-old. The Colorado Avalanche tried to make Johnny Boychuk a forward. Under Julien he became such a fine defenseman he’s now making $7.5 million in cash this season for the New York Islanders. Torey Krug has fared pretty well since joining the Bruins as a college free agent. Phil Kessel, Tyler Seguin and Dougie Hamilton might not be mature enough to admit that Julien helped them become the players they are today. But the fact remains that Kessel hasn’t scored as many points per game in one season as he did for Julien in 2008-09 since he was traded.

And then there’s Ryan Spooner. Although it seems like Spooner has been around forever, he just turned 24 last month. One of my favorite callers to sports radio in recent weeks was one that said she was so glad Spooner, who has 11-28-39 totals in 55 games this season was “sticking it to Claude” because the coach allegedly held the speedy forward’s development back by expecting him to play a two-way game. This caller, and the host who agreed with her, missed the point like Kaspars Daugavins missed the open net. Spooner is the player he is now because of the way Julien handled him. Much of the Bruins’ offense comes from their defense, and more now than ever you see Spooner skating hard on the back check and making plays that get the puck moving in Boston’s direction. Even with his weak faceoff numbers, Spooner is a player that Bruins can rely on to use his offensive skills and help to keep teams from scoring. He’s become a player that after next season will make the Bruins, or someone, pay him like a top-two center.

Spooner, like Seguin and others, may wind up getting traded. That’s not Julien’s problem. He might be able to weigh in with his opinion on certain players, but ultimately the GM makes the trades and Julien just coaches the players he’s given. In Bill Parcells terms, Julien doesn’t shop for the groceries, he’s just the chef.

Like most teams in the salary-cap era, the Bruins are only going to get younger as the likes of Frank Vatrano, Austin Czarnik, last June’s three first-round draft picks, this June’s two first-round draft picks and other high-end talents inherit the team from the veteran core that’s been in place for so many years. Considering the way Julien has gotten the job done with younger players through nine seasons, the Bruins have the right man in place to guide their team into the end of this decade just as they had the right man to turn around their organization back in 2007.

Matt Kalman covers the Bruins for CBSBoston.com and also contributes to NHL.com and several other media outlets. Follow him on Twitter @TheBruinsBlog.