Claude Julien last week offered an unimpeachable defense of the job he and his assistant coaches have done this season with a rebuilding, flawed Bruins squad. His comments Tuesday were a transparent response to his critics who want him gone, and what he said was absolutely true.

The gist: The coaches have done their jobs just fine, setting up the players for success with their overall philosophies and individual game plans.

The Julien system has again done exactly what it’s supposed to do: create scoring chances on offense, and limit them defensively.

It’s been the failure of the players to take advantage of opportunities — along with the inability to stick to the system consistently — that has the team in such a mess at the All-Star break.

“Probably the only thing that we can’t do for them: We can’t shoot,” Julien said after a team practice. “I’m not pointing blame for the sake of pointing blame, but when we talk about creating scoring chances, that’s what we (the coaches) do: We need to give these players a certain style of play that will create scoring chances.

“If the individuals aren’t hitting the net and aren’t scoring, I don’t know that we can do much about it. We harp on it. We harp on them to hit the net. We show clips. But at one point, responsibilities have to be shared.”

We are not big on the whole hockey analytics business. To us, the value in these statistics is that they tend to reaffirm what a coach sees with his own eyes. An experienced coach doesn’t need fancy stats to know which players he can trust on an important defensive-zone faceoff, and which ones he can’t.

But even a cursory glance at advanced NHL stats fully support Julien’s claim that the system he’s installed works just fine.

In the metrics that measure puck possession, the Bruins have done very well. The numbers show that they tend to have the puck more than their opponents and generate lots of shots and scoring chances. Anyone who’s watched the B’s play knew that just from the eye test: We saw, game after game, far too many situations in which the B’s could have and should have won, but did not.

The B’s entered the All-Star break tied with Pittsburgh for No. 1 in the NHL in shots on net, averaging 34.4 per game. Their opponents have averaged just 26.6 shots, which is second-best in the league.

In the CORSI statistic (the total of shots on net, plus shots that are blocked and those that miss the net), puckalytics.com stats show that the Bruins rank No. 1 in the league (62.13). In the CORSI-against, B’s opponents average 49.66 — the third-best number in the league.

If your eyes haven’t glassed over from the statistics, these numbers are very revealing about a team has actually played quite well on offense and defense.

Except, of course, for actually shooting pucks into the net. Alas, in the goals-for-per-game category — actually finishing good opportunities — the B’s rank 23rd in the NHL, averaging a paltry 2.48 goals per game.

Julien has a lot to do with how the Bruins play, but he can’t shoot the puck for them.

This week’s B’s timeline

Tuesday, at Tampa Bay, 7:35 p.m. — After flying to and from Los Angeles for All-Star Game weekend, it seems likely B’s goalie Tuukka Rask will get a night off as his team plays an underachieving Lightning club that’s six points out of a wild card berth and desperate for wins.

Wednesday, at Washington, 8:05 p.m. — The Capitals are probably the best all-round club in the NHL, and have been on a sensational tear recently, with big offensive production almost every time out.

Saturday, vs. Toronto, 7:05 p.m. — This is a critical showdown between teams battling it out for the third Atlantic Division playoff slot — the Bruins clinging to a one-point lead over the Maple Leafs, who have five games in hand. The Maple Leafs are doormats no longer, and a real threat to squeeze the Bruins out of the postseason.

STURM PILOTING TEAM GERMANY’S TAKEOFF

After old friend Marco Sturm retired in January 2014, he did what so many ex-players do: not much. He returned to the game by coaching youth hockey near his home in Florida. And he helped out a bit for Team Germany, doing some NHL scouting.

In the summer of 2015, Sturm was home in Germany on vacation, and was invited to a meeting with German Hockey Federation leadership.

“They had asked me before to scout a little bit, and I went into that meeting thinking it’s going to be a scouting opportunity,” Sturm said. “But they said, ‘No, we want you to be head coach and GM.’

“I was like, ‘What?’ I thought they were joking, I asked them to let me think about it. I told them a couple of things what I’d want, like that I still wanted to live here (in the United States) because of my family. They said no problem, and that was it.”

Just like that, Sturm was Mr. Hockey in Germany. The 38-year-old was already known as one of the best German players to reach the NHL. He played just over 1,000 games in the league, including 316 as a Bruin after being part of the controversial, misguided November 30, 2005, trade that sent Joe Thornton to San Jose.

So now Sturm has the job of trying to raise German hockey to the level of Sweden, Finland and the Czech Republic. He knows it has to start with grass roots development.

“That’s right,” he said. “But it’s tough, because obviously soccer is so big, and that’s where the money goes. So we were struggling. We can see it in youth hockey. It takes a lot of years to start developing talent and we’re in a little bit of a hole right now. That’s why they hired me and a lot of new staff, because they needed to change a lot of things.

“We’re getting there. We have some good (facilities). A lot of money has been spent. But still we need a lot more, and we need the right coaches, too. It takes time.”

At the top level, the big problem was disinterest from German NHL players — there are seven in the NHL this season — in joining the national team.

“No one came to play anymore — world championship, any tournaments,” said Sturm. “That was one if the reasons, too, they wanted me to step in.”

At the top level, though, Sturm’s impact has already been felt. In the 2016 world championships, the Germans went 4-3-1 — including a win against Team USA — before going out in a quarterfinal loss to Russia. Four months ago, Sturm’s team — with ex-B’s assistant Geoff Ward aiding him — won an Olympic qualifying tournament, earning a spot in the 2018 Winter Games in South Korea. This year’s world championships are in Paris and Cologne, Germany.

“Since I’m there a lot of things have changed, in a good way, and a lot of good things are coming up,” said Sturm. “Every year it’s getting better.”