Here’s an excerpt from a great article by Roy MacGregor of Globesport.com. After reading the article/qoutes, you’ll have some lingering doubts about the way Guy Carbonneau coaches this team:
He says his own style of coaching has also changed as he became more secure in the country’s most insecure job. When he took over from Gainey as the head coach two years ago, he was caught up in line-matching and defensive strategies, and “guys on the bench were getting pissed off.”
Part way through his first season, he came to a realization: “You know what? This isn’t working.” And so he began to adapt his own style and became a coach who tries to go with the flow of the game. Tempo, he believes, is what matters most. Not strategy, not tactics. And this you hope to combine with great goaltending — something the Canadiens have been getting from Carey Price, 21 — a little luck and a lot of determination.
“Talent and skill never work if you don’t work,” Carbonneau likes to say. And he is blessed with an abundance of talent and skill these days — a relief, he said, in a city where “there’s 24-hour sports talk shows with six or seven former coaches, probably 10 ex-players, and they all have different opinions.”