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MONTREAL — As soon as his team survived its first-round scare in the NHL playoffs, Montreal Canadiens head coach Guy Carbonneau sought out his Boston Bruins counterpart, Claude Julien.
Carbonneau was thankful his team was moving on to the second round and also admired the job Julien did with his upset-minded Bruins.
The two may be done for now trying to outmanoeuvre each other in a hockey arena, but will be up against each other for the Jack Adams Award when the NHL trophy winners are announced on June 12.
The Carbonneau-Julien matchup was intriguing because it was Julien whom Canadiens general manager Bob Gainey fired on Jan. 14, 2005. Gainey took over the bench, with Carbonneau by his side, the plan being for Carbonneau to become the head coach for the 2005-06 season.
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Carbonneau's team failed to make the playoffs in his rookie season as the head coach, but rebounded this season to finish first in the Eastern Conference, and in his first playoff series, he found his heavily favoured Canadiens up against Julien and the well-coached Bruins.
"Give Claude credit," Carbonneau said. "We beat them eight times in the regular season and won the first two games [in the playoffs]. But then he changed things and got his team to believe."
The Canadiens are the youngest team - average age of 27.7 - to make the playoffs this spring, but not only are the Montreal players going to playoff school, their coach is attending class daily.
"This is my first playoffs [as a coach], too," Carbonneau said. "I'm still learning and I will continue to learn."
Julien received accolades for pushing the right buttons down the stretch to squeeze his team into the postseason without two of its top forwards, Patrice Bergeron (concussion) and Chuck Kobasew (broken leg), and then pulling his team into a seventh game.
Carbonneau, however, exhibited his skill as a coach, too, in the seventh game. He made a clever move to free up some offence by shaking up his top two lines.
Alex Kovalev was placed alongside captain Saku Koivu and Christopher Higgins, while Sergei Kostitsyn, who had been playing with Higgins and Koivu, took Kovalev's spot on the line with his older brother, Andrei, and Tomas Plekanec.
The move got the Kostitsyns and Plekanec away from Kovalev's watchdog, Boston defenceman Zdeno Chara.
Andrei Kostitsyn not only scored twice on Monday, but his brother also put one behind Boston goaltender Tim Thomas.
After being allowed to sleep at home the past two nights, the Canadiens will return to their downtown hotel quarters tonightwed to prepare for the next round, which is likely to begin tomorrow at the Bell Centre. The players were excited to find out who their opponent would be, the New York Rangers or Philadelphia Flyers. Carbonneau was eager, too.
He has been told since he was a teenager playing for the Chicoutimi Saguenéens of the QMJHL that he would make a good NHL coach one day. He said after the seventh game that the best part of his job is sitting around with his assistants, Doug Jarvis, Kirk Muller and Roland Melanson, in the coach's room to challenge each other and formulate game plans. Sometimes Gainey and Montreal assistant GM Pierre Gauthier join in.
"Every time I wake up, I enjoy my day," Carbonneau said. "I still sleep. I have a lot of fun at this.
"This is the best time of year and there is no better place to be than in Montreal for a Game 7."
