No Carbo Copies

by Jennifer Floyd for The Fort Worth Star-Telegram, March 4, 2001

Guh-EEEEE hasn’t reverberated through Reunion Arena in what seems like forever. Mostly because almost a season has passed since Guy Carbonneau played his final game with the Stars.

The last Guh-EEEEEE came June 10, a plea to convince him to play another season. They’d do it again, if he weren’t an assistant coach in Montreal.

Fans, players, coaches -- everybody misses Guy Carbonneau. Every day in little ways.

A defensive-zone faceoff he would’ve won.

A penalty he would’ve killed.

A Peter Forsberg he would’ve shut down.

Mostly, they miss the perspective his leadership provided. The perspective he still provides.

"I really think the last two years have started to wear them down a little bit, the last three really. We played more hockey than anybody else in the NHL, and tough games, too," Carbonneau said on Saturday, casually reverting back to "we" from time to time. "But I still see them as a contender. They have the talent, drive and people there to turn it up when they get to the playoffs. If I were there now, I’d tell the guys [to] look at everything they’ve been through and look at where they are."

He’s right, of course.

The Stars enter today’s game against Buffalo leading the Pacific Division despite one of their bumpier and more inconsistent regular seasons in a long time.

One of the reasons for the bumps is the absence of Carbonneau.

"There is no question we miss Guy Carbonneau. We miss Guy Carbonneau and Craig Ludwig and all the role players we lost," Stars wing Mike Keane said. "Yeah, a lot of people talk about the leadership we lost, but, bottom line, those are some good players. So, once you lose that, you lose your team."

Who knew the loss of a 40-year-old center could hurt this much?

"Anybody who played with him," Stars wing Brett Hull said.

Probably few players miss Carbonneau as much as Hull. They used to carpool to practices and games from Highland Park.

Hockey talk almost always dominated the 25-minute ride.

"Two completely opposite viewpoints," Hull said. "Mine is ... [forget] this and [forget] that. And he kind of just took it all in and would look at me and go, `Well, you have to think about this and because of that this.’ "

Many of those translations were Carbonneau explaining Stars coach Ken Hitchcock to Hull. Stars wing Kirk Muller said that "there is no question Carb was the mediator between those two."

Without Carbonneau to intervene this season, misunderstandings have abounded between Hull and Hitchcock. Hull said again Friday that he doesn’t understand all the line juggling. He doesn’t have a way to vent, so his frustration builds, and, when he’s frustrated, he has trouble scoring.

"He’s not the most upbeat person in the world sometimes," Carbonneau said. "Different people see the game differently. Sometimes, Brett sees something that fits his style or game but doesn’t fit the rest of the team. I’d say, `You have to do this in order to get to this point. It will be better for the whole team.’ "

The whole team was one of Carbonneau’s strengths. He helped fuse all the seemingly incompatible parts into a team by playoff time, which is exactly what the Stars seem to need now.

"I think, every time you don’t have success, you bring up something from the past," Hitchcock said. "We’ve been guilty of living too much in the past, looking for that magic chemistry from the past."

If Carbonneau were still on the team, he’d say the same thing. He’d tell them to quit thinking about what they had lost or what they hadn’t done and start focusing on who they have and what they can do.

"I see the teams that are ahead of them. They have the vengeance in their eyes which we had the last two years because we lost to Detroit and wanted to prove to the world we were the best team in the NHL," Carbonneau said. "I see that in Detroit and in Colorado. But once you get to the playoffs, you can’t take the Stars out of the equation."

Guh-EEEEEEE hasn’t been heard in a while, but he isn’t forgotten.

When Dallas played Minnesota on Feb. 21, a fan brought a sign that said "If Mario can, why not Guy."

Carbonneau chuckled when he heard about it. He says he doesn’t miss playing, not much anyway.

The same can’t be said for everyone else. They miss him a lot.

Photo thanks to Chris D. in Minnesota!