He and his coach aren’t speaking. His team is beginning to be sorry they kept him and traded away one Dan Daoust to the Leafs. He may lose his spot to ace penalty killer John Newberry. People are complaining about the temper tantrum he threw in the locker room. And even though he got a hat trick earlier in the month, he’s in trouble for a lack of effort.

Could we really be talking about Guy Carbonneau?? Have we entered the Twilight Zone? No, we’ve just gone back in time to Carbo’s rookie year, hard times under the Bob Berry regime in January, 1983…

Carbonneau on Habs Snit List

by Glenn Cole for The Hockey News, January 28, 1983

MONTREAL—Hardly a day goes by without a crisis or a mini-crisis in the Montreal Canadiens’ camp. After all, it just wouldn’t be the same if there wasn’t somebody howling or complaining about something to do with Les Glorieux.

But a rookie? Now, that’s some crisis.

Talented Guy Carbonneau, who did his two years service in the minors with the Nova Scotia Voyageurs, was a little unhappy with the ice time he was getting from coach Bob Berry in a recent 8-4 victory over the Hartford Whalers.

After playing semi-regularly for the first two periods, much of it in a penalty-killing role, Carbonneau found himself riding the pines along with linemates Chris Nilan and Steve Shutt through much of the final 20 minutes.

"Actually, I only played two shifts in the second period," said Carbonneau, who was counting. "Both of those were four-on-five (shorthanded) situations. It’s tough to go on the ice and kill penalties when you have been sitting on the bench for so long.

"Put yourself in our place. The coach keeps us on the bench and then all of a sudden, he wants us out there twice in two minutes in the third period. We weren’t ready and Hartford scored its fourth goal while we were on."

Carbonneau left the Canadiens’ dressing room after the Whaler game in record time, although he did take a few seconds out to tie certain team records in equipment tossing before he fled the scene.

Berry, who is not mincing his words these days about what he feels are less-than-adequate efforts, made it clear that he was not all that impressed with the way Carbonneau had handled himself against the Whalers.

"If he doesn’t want to do the job," Berry snarled, "then we’ll put someone in there who does."

Carbonneau was on the ice for about 20 seconds during one of his shifts in the final period and had a shot blocked by Greg Millen. He returned to the Canadiens’ bench after a rather brief tour of duty and was ordered rather abruptly to return to duty by his coach.

"Sometimes the type of game and the pace of the game dictates that you have to match lines and go with three lines," Berry noted. "In our situation, we have Wickenheiser, Mondou and Acton ahead of him. If he wants to play more, then he better put out an effort when he does play."

Carbonneau has been under close scrutiny in recent days here because of the performance of a player the Canadiens traded away, the Maple Leafs’ new spark plug, Dan Daoust. Carbonneau beat out his former Voyageur teammate for the fourth-line job and there was a feeling openly expressed that Carbonneau’s performance had tailed off after the deal with Toronto was made last month.

Carbonneau did record his first three-goal game in the NHL against Los Angeles on Jan. 6 to take off some of the pressure, but Berry obviously figures that he is giving his rookie all the ice time he warrants and that Carbonneau had better be prepared to do it the coach’s way or take the highway out.

While John Newberry’s statistics in Nova Scotia have been underwhelming, he has done a good job killing penalties for the Voyageurs and he, not to mention John Chabot and John Goodwin, would be more than willing to take over Carbonneau’s spot if the latter chose to vacate it.

There is one danger sign in the Carbonneau-Berry situation.

"I haven’t talked to him (Berry)," said Carbonneau. "It’s his problem."

"If he doesn’t turn it around soon, I’ll talk to him," Berry retorted.

Friendly pair, aren’t they?

Webmaster's Note: Read more about Guy's rookie year in the 1982-83 chapter of Retro Carbonneau.