The Montreal Canadiens are officially under new leadership behind the bench, and Claude Julien is tipping his hand a bit in terms of his approach to his new club.

Montreal lost Julien's debut at the hands of the Winnipeg Jets on Saturday, a game wherein young star center Alex Galchenyuk began playing on the first line and was later dropped to the third unit. But still, Julien didn't shy away from deploying Galchenyuk in key situations, even after glaring mistakes were made.

Case in point: Galchenyuk attempted a drop pass that was intercepted and resulted in a goal against. Shortly thereafter, however, he was centering a power-play unit and creating scoring chances.

The leash, then, may be a bit looser than under the previous regime.

"I think you can expect that from me, but at the same time I'm not going to be generous here," Julien conceded after the game, per Arpon Basu of NHL.com. "I think people have to earn their way into those kind of situations. But mistakes are a part of the game sometimes, and you look at what kind of mistake it is. But you also have to, with younger players and certain players, you got to have some patience."

Galchenyuk did record an assist on Montreal's lone goal, and there's no doubt in Julien's mind the 23-year-old is key to the Canadiens success. The coach's goal, then, is to foster Galchenyuk's game - along with that of defenseman Nathan Beaulieu - rather than stifle it.

"This is the new NHL where, with the salary cap and everything else, you have young players in your lineup and part of it is if you want them to be better, you have to live with some of those mistakes. But you also have to show confidence that you know that player is capable of doing better, and in those cases they did."

Galchenyuk finished the game with one assist and one shot in 15:23 of ice time.

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