Stu Cowan: Guy Carbonneau impressed by Martin St. Louis's patience

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Fifteen years after the fact, Guy Carbonneau still doesn’t understand why Bob Gainey fired him as head coach of the Canadiens.

The Canadiens had a 35-24-7 record and had won five of their last seven games — including a 3-1 win over the Stars in Dallas in what ended up being Carbonneau’s last game as head coach — when Gainey decided to fire him on March 9, 2009 and go behind the bench himself on an interim basis.

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The previous season under Carbonneau, the Canadiens finished first in the Eastern Conference with a 47-25-10 record, led the NHL in goals scored and had the No. 1 power play.

After Gainey replaced Carbonneau behind the bench, the Canadiens went 6-6-4 to finish the 2008-09 season and were then swept by the Boston Bruins in the first round of the playoffs. Jacques Martin took over as coach the next season.

“He never told me the reason,” Carbonneau said in a phone interview this week when asked about Gainey’s decision to fire him. “I’ve never really sat down and asked him. That’s the way it is. Sometimes people do something because they have to or they think they should do it. Maybe one day he will tell me what happened, but I’m not killing myself waiting for it.”

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Carbonneau and Gainey were linemates when the Canadiens won the Stanley Cup in 1986. Later, as GM of the Dallas Stars, Gainey acquired Carbonneau from the St. Louis Blues and they won another Cup together in 1999.

Their friendship was shattered after Carbonneau was fired as head coach and they didn’t speak for a long time.

They do talk now.

“There were a lot of years after that that were hard,” Carbonneau said. “There was not a lot of communication. We didn’t really try to force it to meet. But it’s the same thing with Mario (Tremblay) and Patrick (Roy). They got back together a couple of years ago and said: ‘This is stupid. We’re getting older. This is done and we didn’t kill each other.’ I talk to (Gainey) now and it’s fine. We don’t talk to each other every day, but it works.”

Tremblay and Roy, who were also part of the 1986 Stanley Cup team, patched up their differences a few years ago after their feud in 1995 — when Tremblay was head coach and Roy was still playing — led to the goaltender being traded to the Colorado Avalanche. Three years ago, Tremblay and Roy did a hilarious TV ad together for Uber Eats.

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When it was suggested to Carbonneau that maybe he should do a TV ad with Gainey, he laughed and said: “Never thought about it.”

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Carbonneau never got another chance to coach in the NHL, which is surprising. During his three seasons behind the bench he had a 124-83-23 record. Carbonneau said a big reason why he never got another chance is because he still had two-and-a-half years left on his contract when he was fired. Gainey resigned less than a year after firing him and Carbonneau said new GM Pierre Gauthier wouldn’t let other NHL teams talk to him about other coaching positions.

Instead, Carbonneau started working as an analyst for RDS.

“When I started working in television I never really pursued (coaching),” Carbonneau said. “Maybe that was my mistake, but it is what it is. If somebody would call now I would think about it, definitely.”

Carbonneau said what impresses him the most about current Canadiens coach Martin St. Louis is his patience.

“He’s in a position that none of us has been in,” Carbonneau said about previous Canadiens coaches. “He came in here at the start of a rebuild. He’s got the confidence of Kent (Hughes) and Jeff (Gorton) and I guess the ownership bought in on what they’re trying to do, so they don’t put pressure on him. I think this year is going to be a little different.

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“Not that he doesn’t coach to win, but at one point he’s going to have to make decisions to win,” the Hall of Famer added. “This team is going to have to get better and even himself. Pressure’s going to start mounting this year and then we’ll see how he is really in managing the bench, managing the decisions of if you play one guy or you don’t play the other guy, things like that.”

Carbonneau is still wondering what St. Louis’s concepts actually are and doesn’t understand why the Canadiens continue to play man-on-man defence in their own end.

During Carbonneau’s two full seasons as head coach, the Canadiens had the best power play in the NHL, clicking at 23.4 per cent, and ranked 12th in penalty-killing. Over the last two seasons, the Canadiens ranked 29th on the power play (16.8 per cent) and 31st in penalty-killing.

When asked if he might be able to help with the special teams, Carbonneau chuckled and said: “Well, I think they all know my number. So if they need help, they can figure it out.”

scowan@postmedia.com

x.com/StuCowan1

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