Season 11: 1986-87
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Season 11: 1986-87 |
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Guy Carbonneau: Center of the challenge
—by Mario
Fortier, Les Canadiens, Dec. 86/Jan. 87,
Excerpted
and translated from the French
His is a most well-deserved Stanley Cup ring. Since his arrival
with the Canadiens, Guy Carbonneau has proved himself to be one
of the finest players in the league, both by the quality of his
defensive play and the spirit he displays in executing it.
Several times prior to the start of the current
season, Canadiens General Manager Serge Savard was asked if he
intended to acquire the talented center Gilbert Perreault from
the Buffalo Sabres.
"I can’t do that," replied Savard. "I can’t
take the risk. What would happen if the Sabres wanted Guy Carbonneau
in compensation and an arbiter agreed?"
A number of teams would give anything to have Perreault even for
one season. But not the Canadiens, not if there was the least
risk that they would lose Carbonneau in the process. No way.
The lack of interest Savard has in Perrault speaks volumes about
a player who, in the course of four seasons with the Canadiens,
can boast of a 24 goal season as his best. In spite of that Savard,
who holds the purse strings, is ready to admit that Carbonneau
is one of the best players in the organization, a player one can’t
risk losing for any reason.
"When you consider a player like Carbonneau," says Savard,
"you have to keep in mind that he always plays against the
best lines in the league. Sure, he doesn’t score 40 goals
a season, but how could he in his present role? When you’re
playing defensively, your only opportunity to score goals is by
creating scoring chances through good defense."
Plenty of people in the world of hockey, and Carbonneau himself,
have said he would easily score 40 goals a season if he played
on an offensive line.
"I’m never on the power play," says Carbonneau.
"I’m never used in an offensive role. No one is going
to score 40 goals unless they regularly play with the man advantage."
What Carbonneau is really trying to say is that he would love
the opportunity to play offensively, but he equally loves the
role he has played on the team up till now.
Says Savard, "It’s possible that he could score 40 goals
if, let’s say, he was on a line with Claude Lemieux and Mats
Naslund, but at what price to the team? I know very well that
certain members of our organization think that Carbonneau could
play offensively, he could score goals, and others disagree. But
as for me, I believe he’s most useful to the team in his
current role."
"I’m a great admirer of Carbonneau and I appreciate
him very much," adds Savard. "If we moved him from defense
to offense, who would replace him?"
This question is not unreasonable, and since we’re asking,
the most plausible answer is that no one could replace Carbonneau
in the role that has propelled him to the forefront of the National
Hockey League, especially this season, in view of the injury to
Bob Gainey.
A defensive player’s greatest strength is his self-confidence,
and Carbonneau has no lack of it. This is largely due, as Savard
points out, to the fact that he plays against the league’s
best centermen. Not occasionally, but consistently. If the Canadiens’
opponent is the Quebec Nordiques, Peter Stastny will be his man.
If it’s the Edmonton Oilers, Wayne Gretzky has the honor.
The Pittsburgh Penguins? That would be Mario Lemieux.
"I like the challenge," says Carbonneau. "These
are players who have something to teach you every time you play
against them. I get the feeling of having accomplished something
significant for myself and the team each time I can prevent Stastny,
Gretzky or Lemieux from scoring a goal."
"Still," he says, "it’s
only natural that sometimes I sit back and think about what it
would be like to play on an offensive line. That too offers a
lot of satisfaction. I scored a lot of goals when I played in
junior and it has crossed my mind that it would be great to have
the chance to do the same thing in the NHL. But it’s not
something that troubles me or keeps me from sleeping. The important
thing is to do your part, and if you do your best, you will be
rewarded. Like last year, for example."
Carbonneau doesn’t exaggerate when he speaks of his days
of service to the Chicoutimi Saguenéens. His scoring excellence
prompted the Canadiens to make him their fourth choice in the
1979 entry draft. Strangely enough, Carbonneau had to pay his
dues in full with two years playing for the Nova Scotia Voyageurs.
Because the Canadiens felt no great urgency to make changes to
the lineup, it wasn’t until 1982-83 that he was in a Montreal
uniform.
Carbonneau comes to the game well equipped. He is fast and shifty,
two quality of great importance for a player whose principal activity
is checking the best players in the league, and often in short-handed
situations. He is aggressive when he has to be, and always ready
to shoot if the opportunity arises.
For example, when the Canadiens faced the Rangers at the Forum
at the beginning of this season, Carbonneau scored the first goal,
at even strength, and then assisted on a shorthanded goal. Later
in the third period, faced with hot goaltending by the Rangers’
Doug Soetaert, Carbonneau and friends were pressing for the tying
tally. The puck popped loose to Soetaert’s right, about 15
feet away and waist high. Carbonneau, brandishing his stick with
all his might, caught the puck on the shaft and catapulted it
behind a flustered Soetaert.
Later, after the two teams battled to a 3-3 tie, Soetaert shook
his head sadly. "Only Guy Carbonneau would shoot from where
he was," he said, "and only Carbonneau could score from
where he was. This guy can do stuff nobody else in the league
would attempt."
For a long time a number of players have spoken of Carbonneau
in the same terms, including those who have come face to face
with his passionate character.
"You get pretty beat up when you play against the league’s
best," says Carbonneau. "They don’t like it when
the forechecking gets too close, and their teammates don’t
either. So it’s me who takes the punishment, and when that
happens, it’s natural that I react."
In his fifth season, there is no doubt that Carbonneau has become
one of the NHL’s best two way players, if not the best. At
what echelon he falls among all the players in the league is for
GMs and coaches to decide. Serge Savard gallantly refuses to take
part in that vote.
"I promised myself a long time ago, I would never put a number
on a player," says Savard. "By that I mean I woundn’t
say that a player ranks among the ten or fifteen best in the league,
because I know from experience that players keep their news clippings!
So, if I say a player is in the 15 best, then when the moment
comes to negotiate his new contract, he’ll want to be paid
like the league’s 15th best player."
Resources:
"Who is Guy Carbonneau?", by Glenn Cole, Goal,
February 1987
Les Canadiens, Dec. 86/Jan.
87
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