Mar 08 Carbo Had His Faults But Deserved a Better Fate

When asked what his best acquisition was during his mid year press conference, general manager Bob Gainey said without hesitation, "Guy Carbonneau". Was today's firing of one of last year's nominees of the Jack Adams Trophy a complete about face? Don't kid yourselves. Even though it was Gainey who made the announcement, it was not he that fired Guy Carbonneau, it was the 23 players who played for him.

Although the Canadiens won their recent game yesterday evening against an injury decimated Dallas Stars team, this decision had probably already been taken, as Bob Gainey had already been in Hamilton a few days with Don Lever, who will be beside Bob on the Canadiens' bench as of tomorrow morning.

In my opinion, Carbonneau is a great coach in the making and perhaps didn't merit this sudden exit, or he should have at least been given the chance to step down himself. So why did the coach lose his job? He lost the room. Plain and simple. And Bob Gainey, the eternal team guy, did what had to be done in the best interest of the team.

In the end, questionable moves such as the constant line juggling that has been ongoing since Carbonneau took the helm over 2 years ago, playing rookies and 3rd and 4th line players in the dying moments of games when a goal was desperately needed and the constant murmurs that he was unapproachable as a coach culminated in Bob Gainey's 7 PM press conference, where Gainey cited team performance as the only reason why this move was made.

Surely, the highly publicized tiffs with Kovalev last year and the sudden "disappearance" of Kovalev's play, as well as comments from players like Mathieu Dandenault's recently that he got his updates from Kirk Muller and not Carbonneau should have been small glimpses into how things must have been going behind the locker room doors.

Carbonneau himself even said when asked if he would take time to explain certain decisions to his players, that he had a full roster of 23 players and didn't have time to see each and every one of them individually as he had other things to take care of.  I'm thinking this is the crux of what they players might not have responded to as a whole. One has to wonder if the rumours were true that some players had to log on to sports websites or radio shows to know if they were in the line-up or not as Carbonneau was not always available or forthcoming with the info.

Evidently, for me, the writing was on the wall for Carbonneau the moment that Bob Gainey had to yet again intervene when it came to Alex Kovalev. When the GM has to take time out of his duties in order to first order a player to sit out a few games due to his lack of effort and then a few days later, have a heart to heart with him in order to smooth everything back out, well, I'm just thinking this is the coach's job. If Carbonneau could not get his team back on the right path after this, it was his end of days. Well, he didn't and it was. 

A team that perhaps, overachieved last year and finis hed first overall in the eastern conference under the tutelage of Guy Carbonneau, could not have deteriorated to the point of potentially missing the playoffs one year later unless there was something that was causing a rift in the team or in the spirit of the team. Hopefully, the team's actions which caused today's events, will serve them well and that all team chemistry, spirit and work ethic is miraculously restored..  

I had said on thefranchise radio program this past Sunday that if the Canadiens didn't make the playoffs, seeing that Gainey was so fond of Carbonneau, I was expecting the coach to resign by season's end. Gainey surprised even me today when he announced after a come from behind team win that he had just fired his protegé, his coach and his friend.

I do have a few questions however, as yet again, another coach gets punished for the results of an underachieving team. Did the players, at any one given point, ever think to either confront Carbonneau with their issues and let him know how they felt before it came down to this? Was he so unreachable that this was not possible? Did his assistant coaches, who are supposed to be the liaisons not catch on to this discontent and try to set up an intervention to help out their coach? Well, we won't hear any of this tomorrow. All we'll hear from any of the players that choose to be interviewed will be the usual "We're partly to blame for why Guy is gone" or "It's too bad this had to happen" and my personal favourite : "Alot of guys are gonna have to look themselves in the mirror." 

Game on.

Tags: Alex Kovalev \ bob gainey \ fired \ Guy Carbonneau \ habs \ Montreal Canadiens \ NHL \ press conference \ replaced