Carbonneau brings winning style

[Habsfan84]

EDMONTON - Only five players have been in more playoff games than Guy Carbonneau but he's entering virgin territory in a couple of weeks as a National Hockey Hockey head coach.
"It's definitely going to be different," allowed the Montreal Canadiens coach, who played 231 playoff games, just behind Patrick Roy (247), Chris Chelios (246), Mark Messier (236) and Claude Lemieux and Scott Stevens (233).
"As a player, I prepared myself for a long series knowing you were allowed to lose the first game but you weren't allowed to lose the last. I don't think that's going to change as a coach."

Carbonneau and Detroit's Mike Babcock are likely the front-runners for the Jack Adams trophy as coach of the year. Carbonneau's Habs are currently the No. 1 seed in the Eastern Conference after missing the playoffs last year in his first year behind the Montreal bench. Babcock's Red Wings have won 51 games, hitting 50 for a third straight year. Take your pick, but Carbonneau has certainly done a nice job as the Canadiens' fifth coach since 2000.
When he was winding down his playing days in Dallas, playing under Ken Hitchcock, it seemed a given that Carbonneau would either be a coach or a general manager some day He had a great head for the game. But last year was an adjustment, for sure, learning on the job.
"I don't consider myself a veteran in coaching but last year helped me to react and act. I'm thinking more and acting more as a coach now than as a player," said Carbonneau, who played more than 1,300 games and won three Stanley Cups.
"When you start out as a coach, you have a tendency to think 'I used to do this or that as a player,' and there's some truth to that, but it doesn't really work in the long term," he said.
"I understand more now the impact of my decisions, not that I'm shy to make them but I know how to prepare better, and make quicker decisions behind the bench, how to use players ... last year, everybody I used was new to me.
I didn't know how they would react, up one, down one, on the power play, on the penalty-kill."
Carbonneau certainly isn't afraid to pick other coach's brains although, in the end, you're always your own man.
"At the draft we have meetings with all the coaches, and you sit down with Jacques Lemaire and Ken Hitchcock, Lindy Ruff, Mike Keenan and others, but at the end of the day, we're all trying to achieve the same thing and we all have the same problems, just in different places," he said.
"That said, some coaches have gone through situations with, say, a player who's unhappy. I'd like to know how they dealt with it. I've been like this since I was a player ... I was always interested in how coaches interacted with players. Take some good stuff and bad stuff and create your own style."
Carbonneau has got a winning style right now.
He's got a forward, Alexei Kovalev, 35, who had 10 goals in the first 19 games and is having his best year since 2000-01 in Pittsburgh when he had 95 points.
He's got a 20-year-old goalie, Carey Price, who's moved into the No. 1 role fairly seamlessly after Cristobal Huet was traded to Washington, although obviously he has to get through the playoff cauldron yet.

EDMONTON - Only five players have been in more playoff games than Guy Carbonneau but he's entering virgin territory in a couple of weeks as a National Hockey Hockey head coach.
"It's definitely going to be different," allowed the Montreal Canadiens coach, who played 231 playoff games, just behind Patrick Roy (247), Chris Chelios (246), Mark Messier (236) and Claude Lemieux and Scott Stevens (233).
"As a player, I prepared myself for a long series knowing you were allowed to lose the first game but you weren't allowed to lose the last. I don't think that's going to change as a coach."

Carbonneau and Detroit's Mike Babcock are likely the front-runners for the Jack Adams trophy as coach of the year. Carbonneau's Habs are currently the No. 1 seed in the Eastern Conference after missing the playoffs last year in his first year behind the Montreal bench. Babcock's Red Wings have won 51 games, hitting 50 for a third straight year. Take your pick, but Carbonneau has certainly done a nice job as the Canadiens' fifth coach since 2000.
When he was winding down his playing days in Dallas, playing under Ken Hitchcock, it seemed a given that Carbonneau would either be a coach or a general manager some day He had a great head for the game. But last year was an adjustment, for sure, learning on the job.
"I don't consider myself a veteran in coaching but last year helped me to react and act. I'm thinking more and acting more as a coach now than as a player," said Carbonneau, who played more than 1,300 games and won three Stanley Cups.
"When you start out as a coach, you have a tendency to think 'I used to do this or that as a player,' and there's some truth to that, but it doesn't really work in the long term," he said.
"I understand more now the impact of my decisions, not that I'm shy to make them but I know how to prepare better, and make quicker decisions behind the bench, how to use players ... last year, everybody I used was new to me.
I didn't know how they would react, up one, down one, on the power play, on the penalty-kill."
Carbonneau certainly isn't afraid to pick other coach's brains although, in the end, you're always your own man.
"At the draft we have meetings with all the coaches, and you sit down with Jacques Lemaire and Ken Hitchcock, Lindy Ruff, Mike Keenan and others, but at the end of the day, we're all trying to achieve the same thing and we all have the same problems, just in different places," he said.
"That said, some coaches have gone through situations with, say, a player who's unhappy. I'd like to know how they dealt with it. I've been like this since I was a player ... I was always interested in how coaches interacted with players. Take some good stuff and bad stuff and create your own style."
Carbonneau has got a winning style right now.
He's got a forward, Alexei Kovalev, 35, who had 10 goals in the first 19 games and is having his best year since 2000-01 in Pittsburgh when he had 95 points.
He's got a 20-year-old goalie, Carey Price, who's moved into the No. 1 role fairly seamlessly after Cristobal Huet was traded to Washington, although obviously he has to get through the playoff cauldron yet.