Respect: Carbonneau will have to earn it behind Habs' bench

By Red Fisher, Montreal Gazette, 10/4/06

MONTREAL - It wasn't that long ago that Canadiens owner George Gillett, fresh from a trip to Europe and only a couple of days away from a salmon fishing trip to Alaska, was on the telephone. The subject? The 2006-07 NHL season.

"What do you think we've got coming?" he asked.

"Guy Carbonneau, that's who," he was told.

The emotion Carbonneau brought to the game during his on-ice career could be the best thing the team has going for it. Carbonneau doesn't have much more than last season's team to work with, but his players will discover in a hurry that anything less than their best will be unacceptable.

Emotion always was a part of Carbonneau's game as a player and he'll be wearing the same wardrobe in his new job. Trouble is, it won't be enough unless it's linked with what the Queen of Soul, Aretha Franklin, was looking for with the opening lyrics to her classic song of the ages: R-E-S-P-E-C-T.

"What you want,
Baby, I got,
What you need,
Do you know I got it?
All I'm askin',
Is for a little respect ..."

Will Carbo get it?

"Respect is a big word," Carbonneau said. "I have hockey experience. I've been around it long enough. I've been playing pro hockey for 20 years. I've worked behind the bench for almost two years. I've worked in the office, so I would like to think that I deserve some of it (respect) for what I did in the past.

"I'd like to think I have the background to teach. The part that's missing ... the fact that maybe not having experience as a head coach, well ... it's gonna be up to me to show I can do it.

"I have to earn it," Carbonneau added. "I don't think that I'm sitting here and OK, I don't have to do anything except open the door. I think it will be the way I handle myself with the new generation of players, the way I teach the game to them, the way I handle the situation when we're going through hard times.

"I'm here to push every player to his maximum," Carbonneau said. "Some people might not like it, some people will love it. You always have that, but as long as I'm fair and they understand that, I'll get the respect I need.

"It's not for me. It's for the team. Everything I always did was for the team, and that's not gonna change. Obviously, results are a big part of it. The quicker you can get there, the better it is. I'm more worried about the last game of the season than the first game. As long as we keep improving between the first and the last ... as long as I see results, I think I'll be fine."

Bob Berry was the Canadiens' head coach when Carbonneau joined the team as a regular for the 1982-83 season. Berry was followed by Jacques Lemaire, Jean Perron, Pat Burns and Jacques Demers. Mike Keenan was Carbonneau's coach in St. Louis, Bob Gainey and Ken Hitchcock in Dallas.

The coach Carbonneau respected the most was Lemaire - for his Hall of Fame career as a player and the quality of his teaching.

"I respected his way of taking the little things that some of us didn't think about and make it work," Carbonneau said. "He always believed in never being satisfied with the skills you had and made us work on them. He was driven. He believed that if the individual gets better, the team gets better."

On emotion: "Behind the bench, there are times when you need to be emotional. What I have to do is learn when and how to do it. Try to pace myself. As a player, you do it more often.

"I don't want to hide that," Carbonneau added. "When it's a big game, I want the players to know it's a big game. As a player, you spend 30 or 40 seconds on the ice, you do what you have to do, then you come back to the bench and try to catch your breath. As a coach, there are so many more things which go through your mind."

Good point, but answer this: how many Carbonneaus did former associate coach Carbonneau see on the team that won the first two games of their first-round playoff dance with Carolina last season - and then lost the next four?

"We just couldn't do it, and hopefully the young guys and the older guys now understand whatever we did was good, but not good enough," Carbonneau said. "Now it's up to me to get that message across ... to try to remember what we did and how hard it was. It's a lot of emotion and it's effort. That's all it is. You don't steal the Stanley Cup ... you have to take it. You earn it or you just go home!"

You can forget about Carbonneau losing sleep about his team's mediocre record during the meaningless exhibition season. He insists he likes what he has, that the team he's taking into the regular season in Buffalo on Friday is stronger than last season.

Say what?

The Alex Kovalev-Mike Ribeiro-Sergei Samsonov line was underwhelming during the exhibition season, which is one of the reasons Ribeiro now is in Dallas. His replacement, for now, is Tomas Plekanec, but Kovalev is the key. He has to score more.

"Kovalev has the shot," Carbonneau said, "but sometimes, he's trying to hit the corners too much. Brett Hull used to tell me he couldn't understand why guys were trying to hit the corners all the time. 'Just try and hit the net,' he told me. 'Try and hit the middle of the net.'

"I really think we're a better team. I look at (Chris) Higgins, I look at Radek Bonk. Plekanec looks stronger. (Michael) Ryder looks healthy and I think (Mike) Johnson is going to be a big surprise.

"Is there pressure to win? Sure, there is," Carbonneau said. "Am I scared?" he asked. "Yes, a little bit. I'll manage."

All he needs is respect.

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