Guy Carbonneau Conference Call Transcript

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Guy Carbonneau Conference Call Transcript, Sept 18, 2007

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An Interview with:

COACH GUY CARBONNEAU

DAVID KEON: Good morning, everyone. I'm David Keon of the National Hockey League's Public Relations Department. With us we have Montreal Canadiens Head Coach Guy Carbonneau.

Tomorrow, Montreal will open their main training camp as they prepare for the 2008?2009 National Hockey League season. After a couple days of practice, the team will open the exhibition schedule on Monday in Halifax against last year's opening playoff opponent the Boston Bruins. On Tuesday, the team will travel to Roberval, Quebec, where they will meet the Buffalo Sabres, the highlight event of Kraft Hockeyville 2008. Last season Montreal finished first in the Eastern Conference with 104 points on a record of 47?25?10. Guy was the runner up to Bruce Boudreau of the Washington Capitals in the voting for the Jack Adams Trophy as the National Hockey League's Coach of the Year.

Thanks to Guy for joining us today to answer your questions. Operator, we'll open it up for questions.

Q Coach, want to get your thoughts on this trip to Roberval. You must be pretty excited.

GUY CARBONNEAU: I am because I had a chance to play four years there at Chicoutimi which is about an hour away. I've never had a chance to get there too often. But I know the people there are excited. It's always been a corner of the provinces that really supported the Canadiens. I'm sure I'm going to have a few friends in the stands.

And I saw the last couple of years there with Hockeyville, we had a chance to see it first hand how the people are excited to have teams come in. And I know there's a lot of work that's been put behind that to win that contest. So I think it's always great for the teams to do those trips, but at the end of the day I think it makes a lot of people happy.

Q With you guys going specifically, what do you think that's going to mean to those people?

GUY CARBONNEAU: Like I said, I think that the Montreal Canadiens have always been, especially in Quebec, the number one team. And, like I said, that part of the province has always been supportive of our team. Every time we have the chance to do those kind of trips, people are really excited because they don't have a chance to see us too often, especially on their ice.

Q Could you talk a little bit about how Lang and Tanguay will fit into your team format?

GUY CARBONNEAU: I think their style of play will fit really well. We proved last year that we can be a good solid offensive team. We're a team that wants to use our speed. Maybe we're not kind of like Detroit or Dallas that wants to be a puck control team. Not that we want to get rid of it. But we want to make plays to get the puck quick out of our zone and go into the offense. And I think those two guys are going to fit really well.

Q Other than maybe playing quarterback for the Green Bay Packers, probably playing goal for the Montreal Canadiens has got to be one of the toughest positions to play in pro sports. What is it about Carey Price that allows him to be able to handle this?

GUY CARBONNEAU: I think his background. He's proved in the junior years that he played that he can perform to a high level. He did it in the World Junior Championship in a tough situation. Right after that, now he went to Hamilton. And, again, not to disrespect the players around him, but they didn't have a top team and they won a Cup there, too.

So I thought last year he improved a lot. He did really a lot of good things. A lot of people said that he went down in the playoffs, but I think we should turn the page around and look at what Biron did for the Flyers. But I think he came back this summer. He's in better shape. He's a lot stronger physically and mentally. And I think he'll be just fine this year.

Q I'm just wondering, with the success you guys had last season and some of the moves you've made in the off season, what's the mood like for yourself and your players now just on the eve of training camp here?

GUY CARBONNEAU: I think everybody's excited. There's always nervousness, I think, when you start every season. Doesn't matter if you had success or not. Nobody wants to have a bad season. I think everybody ? we made a lot of strides last year. I think we improved a lot. We made some great transactions this summer to help our team and to improve our team.

So I think everybody's anxious to start, to prove that last year was not a fluke. And I think as a coach, we still have to be careful. We don't want to put expectations too high. But I think it's just normal to be, like I said, nervous a little bit before the start of the season. But we've gained a lot of experience last year. Some kids came in and did really well and we hope they can do it again this year.

Q What sort of things can you do to maybe manage those expectations or to keep, not have too much pressure on you guys so soon, I guess?

GUY CARBONNEAU: I think trying to keep the mood around the arena relaxed. But I always say when I came in I'm pretty intense when it comes to games. But after that, I think I want everybody to have fun and enjoy it. It's a long season. There's a lot of games. There's a lot of ups and downs and those are things you have to manage as an organization, as a coach.

And we're trying to take the pulse of the team every day, every week, see where we stand. And we changed the mood accordingly. Like sometimes we'll take a day off when we don't have one just because it's time to take a day off.

Like I said, I think players are well aware of what we did last year, what the expectation is here. I think here in Montreal it's always been high expectations. Doesn't matter the season. Obviously with the centennial and the fact that we finished last year, there's a little bit more higher expectation. But we still have to play Game 1 before we get to the end.

Q Finally, I'm just wondering, seems to me now that we have more teams in the mix at the start of the team in terms of teams we might think could be playoff teams. Do you think it's gotten tough to make the playoffs since the time you were playing?

GUY CARBONNEAU: Yes, definitely. I think you can put 30 teams in the hat at the start of the year. Everybody still believes they can make the playoffs. Because a lot of things can happen now. We still have to be ? you need to have a good team and good goaltending, good defense, all that stuff. But you still have to stay away from injuries. You get three or four injuries to top players and your season goes down the drain pretty quickly, because, like I said, in the past ? and that's not to knock everybody in the past, but you could take your time, not coast, but get ready until Christmas and then after Christmas turn it on and finish really strongly.

Now, if you have a bad month, or first 10 or 15 games of the season, you can be out of the playoffs right away.

Q Just curious, with Montreal celebrating their 100th anniversary this year, could you talk about some of the memories or your most, your best memory as a player playing for the Canadiens?

GUY CARBONNEAU: Well, I think just being a kid, being drafted by the Montreal Canadiens was probably the biggest thrill of my life. Coming in here and my first training camp, walking into The Forum, having a chance to be on the line with Guy LaFleur and Steve Shutt. But I think the most memorable moment is just every day coming to the rink and seeing guys like Maurice Richard and Henri Richard and Jean Beliveau always being around the teams and talking about history. You really learn a lot from being close to those people.

Q Also, when you talk about your run to the Stanley Cup in '86 and '93, quite different the first year, rookie goaltender Patrick Roy leads your team to the Stanley Cup. In '93 you had an incredible run by winning 10 overtime games in route to another Cup. Could you talk about if you have a favourite moment or two or just in general what you guys went through those two years?

GUY CARBONNEAU: I don't have a specific moment. I think it's more memories from the whole thing. I think every time people ask me, I have the chance to win the Cup three times and people ask me which one was the best, I don't know which one is the best. They're all great and they all have different stories to it.

The first one I thought was really emotional because after the game you really kind of look back into your life, from the time you start skating, every day you have to practice, before school, outside freezing or shoveling the snow off the ice rinks and keep skating for 15, 20 minutes and start again to shovel. So that was the great stories there. But you wake up a month later and things went so quick that you didn't have a chance to enjoy it. So I think the second one and the third one I was able to kind of sit back and enjoy a lot more.

Q Your recent rookie camp was very successful at such a high level of intensity displayed. It had to be very satisfying. Barring injuries or further trades, how many of those young youngsters have a realistic chance of making your opening day roster?

GUY CARBONNEAU: I think as everybody knows, I think if you look at our roster, we're pretty set. We have three people left to our team, Mark Streit, Mike Ryder and Bryan Smolinski. And we added three people in Alex Tanguay, Robert Lang and Georges Laraque. So right there we think we're set. But every time you have a main camp, there's always surprises. There's always options that you want to keep open. I can't say here that there's going to be three or four guys that has a chance. But one guy can really kind of open our eyes and gives options to our team to enforce our hand. That's why we want to have a training camp or else there would be no use of having one.

Q This summer you had major right hip replacement surgery. How is your health today?

GUY CARBONNEAU: It's still sore a little bit. But it's getting better every day. I workout and I ride the bike and I'm trying to get my leg stronger. But it feels a little bit better than it used to.

Q I'd like to ask you if you think that you will have a different role for Mike Komisarek this year, or if you will want him to be perhaps ? it's hard to ask a player to be less physical, to play a different style of game. But you have added Georges Laraque. And Komisarek told us at a golf tournament earlier this month, he may not have to drop the gloves as much this year and he may be able to stay out of the box a little more. Is that an expectation or hope of yours?

GUY CARBONNEAU: I think it's a little bit of both. I think we talked to Mike last year a lot about fighting. We always say that something happened, I've never said don't fight. But we want him on the ice. He's a 25?minute player, and he's a good player for us. We still want him to be physical, because that's his style and that's the style that he plays best at. Obviously with a guy like Georges around, people on the other side might think twice about going after him, which happened a lot last year.

Q Do you expect to see leadership qualities from guys like Tanguay and Laraque, adding experienced veterans to your lineup this year?

GUY CARBONNEAU: I think so. By experience, I think it always takes some time to get adjusted to your team, teammates, your new city. I don't expect those three guys to come in day one and be leaders for us. But I think down the line they'll learn to appreciate where we're at and what we want to do. And with the experience that these guys have, and at the time of their career, too. They're not young guys and they're not coming in not knowing what's going to happen to them or what to expect from them. I think the timing is really good.

Q Alex Kovalev has come to camp this year as a smaller version of himself from what we saw himself. He, as well as Carey, has dropped weight. Kovalev had a terrific season last year. What are your thoughts and expectations what he'll produce for you this year?

GUY CARBONNEAU: Obviously we want him to be on top of his game. And we gave him a lot of roles last year. Gave him ? we wanted him to assume some leadership roles off the ice and on the ice. And he did a really good job for us. And obviously the season that he had on the ice was spectacular.

Hopefully, with the additions we have this year, it will just make him better. I think he's proved last year that there was a lot of people that wrote him off before. And I think he wanted to prove to people that he was still a good player. And with what he did last year and where we want to go this year, I think it's going to be an exciting year.

Q Getting back to Roberval, can you talk about how much you like the idea that the league is bringing NHL hockey to such a small town?

GUY CARBONNEAU: I think it's great, a great experience. I still remember when I started my career with Montreal, we used to play softball, anywhere from five to 10 games everywhere in Canada. We used to go to small towns. And I couldn't believe in part of British Columbia or Saskatchewan and the middle of nowhere that we had people that loved Montreal Canadiens. So with the Hockeyville contest, it's across the country and they do a great job, an unbelievable job just to try to win that contest.

And it's always fun. You get back to your roots. Like I said, it's inconvenient sometimes to go that far, but once you get there and you meet those people, you come out of it with great, great admiration for those people.