Boston Herald (Steve Conroy):
April 21st, 2008 at 11:35 am
Montreal presser
Montreal coach Guy Carbonneau just finished his morning press briefing in which he said that Bruins will be facing a different kind of pressure.
Before, when they were down 3-1, they had nothing to lose,” said Carbonneau. “Now they have a chance to win. We’ll see how they react to that.”
Carbonneau said this series personal matchup against Bruins coach Claude Julien has been a challenge.
“This is my first playoff as a coach. I’m having fun and I’m going to learn from it. No matter what happens, I’m going to learn from it,” said Carbonneau.
It doesn’t appear there’ll be any Montreal lineup changes.
Habster:
I’m sure my All Habs counterpart, Rocket will like Carbonneau’s self evaluation as a coach in this series. I would have to agree somewhat with Rocket’s assessment that Claude Julien has done the better job coaching his team and preparing them for the playoffs. He has the Bruins playing a consistent playoff style of hockey which has completely shutdown the Habs powerplay and has shutdown the KPK line’s production.
Julien and his coaching staff have game planned better than Guy Carbonneau and his staff. They have also made the better on ice and personnel adjustments through most of this series.
As Carbonneau stated:
“I’m having fun and I’m going to learn from it. No matter what happens, I’m going to learn from it,”
I just hope the learning process will continue beyond tonight’s game otherwise the players won’t be the only ones feeling the heat from the media and fans.
I don’t mind Carbonneau saying that the playoffs are a learning experience for him, but I would rather hear that when the playoffs are over (preferably in June). Saying it now coupled with “no matter what happens” has a very self-defeating sound to it. A gladiator never concedes that defeat is a possibility until it happens.
I didn’t like the way it sounded either but I think Carbo has always been straight forward with his comments to the media, I guess in this instance it wasn’t any different.
As far as tonight’s game, I don’t know what to think concerning the outcome……..my heart says one thing but my head say another. We’ll have to wait and see which Habs team shows up to play.
When any profesional team has as much momentum as the Bruins have right now, it’s a difficult thing to get back especially when your team has given up 8 third period goals in the last 2 games.
We’ll keep our fingers crossed and hope the team veterans and leadership can motivate the team to the next level.
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