Carbonneau’s wisdom, guidance keep Stars above ice

5/15/98

By Keith Gave
The Dallas Morning News

A sudden hush fell over the Edmonton Coliseum crowd as the oldest man on the ice stood alone in apparent disbelief at what he had just done. Then he broke into the same huge smile he surely must have had 14 years earlier, when he scored his first Stanley Cup playoff goal for the Montreal Canadiens against the archrival Quebec Nordiques.

His grin reveals a few more wrinkles, and his face is creased with little nicks and scars from a career’s worth of errant pucks and sticks and elbows. But there is no mistaking the wisdom in his eyes and the joy with which Guy Carbonneau still plays hockey.

Who says this is a young man’s game? And who would dare to dispute this man’s influence on his hockey club?

If the Dallas Stars hockey club was a ship, Carbonneau, 38, would be its rudder. Without him, it would be the Titanic—and San Jose would have been the iceberg.

He is the player, because of his leadership, character and guidance on the ice and in the dressing room, who is most responsible for the Stars being up 3 - 1 in their best-of-7 Western Conference semifinals playoff series with Edmonton. The Stars have imposed their will on Edmonton because Carbonneau imposes his will on his teammates, refusing to allow them to beg off, using injuries as an excuse, when the going got a little rough this post-season.

"Players like him love the game for all the right reasons," Stars coach Ken Hitchcock said. "I don’t care if these games were played in an outdoor rink, it doesn’t matter to Guy. He just loves the game. He absolutely loves it. And he never picks his spots. He just plays."

Carbonneau doesn’t play as much as some of his higher-profile teammates, usually 16 minutes of the most precious ice time: Always checking the other team’s best players; always killing penalties, especially when his team is two men short; always playing the last minute of a period and the last shift of a hockey game to help safeguard a lead.

And to think just a few months ago Carbonneau was contemplating retirement to try his hand at coaching. Jacques Demers, his former coach in Montreal when the Canadiens won the Stanley Cup in 1993, has asked Carbonneau to become his assistant in Tampa Bay.

"I think Guy Carbonneau can make me a better coach," said Demers, paying his former captain the ultimate compliment. And that’s from a guy who has two Jack Adams trophies as the NHL’s coach of the year to go with his Stanley Cup ring.

"He’ll be a heck of a coach, a demanding son of a gun, because he knows the difference between real and halfway," Hitchcock said, adding that Carbonneau never hesitates to offer his point of view on how the Stars might improve their game plan.

"Whether my door is closed, half-open, whatever, Guy’s not afraid to speak up," he said. "And I like that. If it’s good for the team, my ego can take it."

But for the moment, Hitchcock cannot imagine a lineup without Carbonneau at its nucleus. An unrestricted free-agent after the season, Carbonneau has shown he’s not quite ready to call it quits after 16 NHL seasons.

And if the Stars don’t sign him, he’ll have plenty of opportunities to re-up with another team.

"He’s a good player for us, a very good player," Hitchcock said. "He’s not just a body out there."

Carbonneau thrives because of his passion for the game, a passion he says comes from his years in Montreal, where hockey is religion and the Canadiens’ dressing room is frequented by the game’s high priests.

"Just to be able to sit around and talk with Maurice and Henri Richard, Jean Beliveau, Toe Blake. . . . When you’re a young guy, that means a lot," Carbonneau said. "When they tell you a story, it’s from the heart. Those guys, they played for the love of the game.

"These days, you still have to love the game, but it seems like there’s more respect for the money now than the game."

As Carbonneau ages so gracefully, goals like the one he scored on a low slapper that eluded Curtis Joseph on Wednesday night are rare. Incredibly, that was his first point of these playoffs.

But Guy Carbonneau is smiling that young man’s smile often these days because the Dallas Stars are winning. And for him, that’s all that truly matters.

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