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Béliveau: Veterans, not rookies, must carry Habs
posted by Dave Stubbs at 6h40 EST on Dec 11
DAVE STUBBS
The Gazette
Don’t expect a 20-year-old rookie or a pair of farm-team imports to haul the Canadiens out of their rut, or otherwise save the club’s season.
That responsibility, says Canadiens icon Jean Béliveau, falls squarely on the shoulders of the team’s veterans.
And from where Béliveau sits – in his regular seats three rows behind the Canadiens bench, near enough to see the veins bulging on the neck of head coach Guy Carbonneau – the club no longer has a speed advantage in the NHL, and it could use a little more muscle.
“It’s unfair for anyone to think that the two young guys they’ve just brought up from Hamilton (defenceman Ryan O’Byrne and forward Maxim Lapierre) are going to save this team,” Béliveau said yesterday.
“They could be a big help, but they need the help of the veterans. You don’t bring in a young player and ask him to save the team for the veterans. It should be, and it’s always been, the other way around.”
Veterans should adjust for rookies
It’s the task of the team’s seasoned players, the Hall of Famer and 10-time Stanley Cup winner adds, to make adjustments to accommodate the younger talent.
“I remember (coach) Toe Blake one day told me, ‘Jean, I think I’ll put all the youngsters coming up with you,’ ” Béliveau said. “That was fine with me. I centred Gilles Tremblay, Fergy (John Ferguson), Bobby Rousseau, Yvan Cournoyer and Dick Duff, who was a little older.
“Every time I had a new winger, I told him, ‘It’s not up to you to change your style, it’s up to me to adjust mine. I’m the veteran. Play your own style. That’s what brought you to the NHL.’ ”
For a feature eight Novembers ago, I sat with Béliveau in his seats to watch a game through his eyes. The Canadiens ended a nine-game winless skid that night with a 2-1 victory over Anaheim.
Behind the bench, Alain Vigneault exhaled a long sigh of relief at the final siren, and Béliveau remarked how the Canadiens head coach’s complexion turned a slightly warmer shade of chalk.
The win was one of the club’s 35 that season, to go with 34 losses, nine ties and four overtime defeats. The Canadiens missed the playoffs, and 20 games into 2000-01, at 5-13-2, Vigneault was fired and replaced by Michel Therrien.
Who surrendered the reins to Claude Julien, who yielded them to Bob Gainey, who turned them over to Carbonneau.
Names have changed, situation hasn't
“In the 1950s, the ’60s and the ’70s, we always had a great player,” Béliveau said that evening. “They don’t have that now, and they’re missing it. Now there’s no one so good you can use him to help the others, because they all need some help. ...
“I know what these guys are going through,” he added. “In my day, we had sessions like these and we suffered from the stress. So I can imagine what they’re feeling now. They’re probably hurting more emotionally than physically.”
Fast forward 97 months, and it’s clear that, while many of the names have changed, much of the situation has not.
To have the salvation of the Canadiens dropped in the crease of rookie goalie Carey Price is entirely unreasonable, Béliveau believes.
“The last time we were in the playoffs (in 2005-06), it was Cristobal Huet who put us there,” he said. “If you’re going to have problems with your goalies now (Huet is recovering from a groin injury and Price is playing like a promising rookie who’s learning on the job), it makes your position a lot worse.
“I’ve seen Price facing 35 to 40, sometimes more shots per game. I’ve said all along, ‘The poor kid, if he’s going to get that many, there are going to be nights when he won’t stop them all.”
No matter the Canadiens’ current skid, with five straight home losses heading into tonight’s game against Tampa Bay, Béliveau jokes that he hasn’t yet had to scalp his tickets; he still finds eternally grateful friends and guests to join he and his wife, Élise, in their four seats.
If asked, he’ll remark on the speed of the Canadiens, wondering whether it’s an optical illusion, and he’ll comment on the dart board that seemingly produces Carbonneau’s lines.
He’ll also question the depth of toughness on the team, which he says can ill afford to lose a pillar like defenceman Mike Komisarek for 17 minutes as happened during Saturday’s 5-1 drubbing by Carolina.
“I’ve always thought that one of the reasons for our success has been our speed, that we were a better skating team than most,” Béliveau said.
No longer have the skating edge
“I’m not going to talk about (last Tuesday’s) Detroit game. We were outplayed in every part of that. But Nashville (three nights earlier) was faster than we were, and most of the teams we play are at least as fast. We don’t have the skating edge on others that we once did.”
On line shuffling: “I suppose Carbonneau has just been trying to find the right combinations. You must ask, does he really have the players to stay with on one line for a longer time?”
On toughness: “On the whole, we look a little small. While I’ve respected Carbonneau’s philosophy about not having one or two big guys, it’s funny – I remember one of the reasons we lost the Cup from 1961-64 after having won five straight was because we were manhandled. So (GM) Frank Selke brought in Fergy and Ted Harris from the American league, and traded a little earlier for Lou Fontinato.”
The much more rugged Canadiens won the championship four times from 1965-69.
In theory, at least, Béliveau believes the team’s recent rough patch could be smoothed over with a few victories.
“We certainly can’t blame the fans (for their impatience), because they’ve been tremendous the past few years when all of them haven’t watched the greatest of games – myself included,” he said.
“A few wins would change everything, as it always has. That’s what I’ve been sweating and wishing for.”
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Much more constructive comments than Lafleurs b.s.
Beliveau's article should be posted in the Hab's dressing room and be required reading for the entire team, management included.
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"Vote Saku for All-Star... or little Timmy gets it!!!"
I agree on that. Of course like I already said, it should be a required reading for the posters too.
Ali B.
Mille merci M. Beliveau. As always you are the real class act in and out of hockey (and you have been always my favourite player).
To all the posters who have been inundating these pages lately with one liner senseless, angry and/or meaningless postings (the ones asking for Carbo's head appear to be the majority):
Please read and RE-READ Le Gros Bill's comments. It's also a lesson in civility for the some that seem to have lost it.
YES WE ALL ARE FRUSTRATED WITH THE CURRENT SITUATION our Habs are in, but we need to support the team and the coaching staff. Changing coaches every other year doesn't do jack, if it did, we would have better results in the last 14 years. The veterans must do their fair share and they haven't.
As an example: I'm flabbergasted when I see some posters complaining that the team loses a lot of face-offs and turn around and blame Carbo. For heaven's sake Carbo can teach the players how to do it but at the end, the players have to perform on the ice. If they don't or can't, it's their fault.
Similarly, there's a lot of talk about Carbo doesn't have a "system" or "the players don't believe in Carbo's system" blah blah, appear to be a common thread. Excuse me, but if I were a coach and the players did not perform because they did not believe in my system (whether it's a good or a bad one), they'd be riding the pine to the end of the season or be traded away. Players don't pick the system, they're paid handsomely to play it (when they played we/they won), just like a corporal does not run the army.
Last but not least, Gainey has done (and probably still doing) his utmost to get a good forward and one or two strong man but with the current nhl and CBA rules, it's not easy to trade for players and most of them don't want MTL, besides we don't have much to give away. So blaming Gainey doesn't help in anything either. If we can see that we need these kind of players, Gainey is not blind and has about a hundred times the hockey knowledge that we collectively have in these pages, he's aware of that problem too.
I hope the veteran players come to the ice tonight to play as they should for 60 minutes.
Thank you.
Ali B.
Ali Berke,
Thank you for your level-headed comments. You are not alone in your frustration at the posters on here who have turned, what was last year an excellent blog or forum for discussing the Habs, into an online version of Yuk Yuk's, complete with constant one-liners, mockumentaries, and even recently (with a bag over his head),the unknown comic!
I can only hope for an improvement in my favorite hockey team's fortunes...this will drive these people away quite quickly. When they have nothing to harp about, or make fun of, they will quietly disappear until the next opportunity arises for them to garner more attention.
Mr. Beliveau is a very smart man.
Thank you.
He truly is amazing and so astute; total class act.
I think you have to read between the lines and understand he is calling on the leadership of the team to take the reins. Gainey, Carbo and Muller were all highly-respected team captains in their day. If the veteran players aren't following their leadership, that is a cue to the youngsters that there is a problem and they don't know how seriously to take it. If, say, Muller says "do this" and then Kovi / Koivu / Markov / Brisebois / Ryder or whoever else do something else entirely, then what do the kids do? Who do they listen to? In a leadership vacuum, the ship sinks.
Something is amiss in there, and if BG is giving the coaches a little leeway in solving the problem themselves, I have to wonder how long before his patience runs out and he takes the coaching reins on himself again. Where is Kovalev the last few games? How come none of the lines are clicking? For once, I am finding myself questioning Koivu's commitment - yesterday he was AWOL from the function at the Children's Hospital. When was the last time he balked at that?
Translation:
With all the hand wringing and looking to *someone else* for the solutions to their problems, Beliveau just handed a nicely worded to-do list to a number of people. On the ice, Mr B has identified a group who should immediately begin taking the lions share of responsibility for righting the course.
The patriarch has now given his advice and guidance, and perhaps the players, in some small gesture of respect, will respond in a way that shows they understand what he's saying.
Mr Béliveau's comments are the best I've heard all season. He truly is a gentleman.
This sums it up in my opinion - "They don’t have [a big star] now, and they’re missing it. Now there’s no one so good you can use him to help the others, because they all need some help...."
Beliveau is quite subtle in what he says. That's not only for reasons of diplomacy--he's still close to the club--and because he is a gentleman, but also because he knows how to get across an unplesant message without doing more harm than good. What he was talking to Dave Stubbs about was leadership or, more accurately, the lack of leadership on this Canadiens team.
I remember Beliveau helping newcomers to the team, no matter their age, in the Sixties. When Dick Duff joined the Canadiens, from the Leafs by way of the Rangers, he already was a veteran, but it was Beliveau who helped him settle in to his new team.
Beliveau told his new linemates not to bother about adjusting to his style of play, that he would adjust to them, in order to ease the pressure, the burden, on them. That was a typical piece of leadership from the veteran captain. The fact is that any player will try to adjust to the styles of his linemates when he joins a new line; it is hardly avoidable. But Beliveau made sure that his new linemates did not worry unduly about it and openly took the responsibility on himself of ensuring they played well together as a line.
For the same reason, Beliveau stresses that we--the fans, the media, management and the players--ought not to put on new young players the burden of turning the team around. That places undue pressure on them. The truth is that we all hope (hope rather than expect) the new youngsters will help turn the team around; that is the reason they were called up. But the veteran players should--both publicly and within the team--take on the responsibility for where the team is and where it is going, not only because that eases the burden on the youngsters but also because it is in fact the veterans' responsibility.
It helps in commanding respect if the veteran players are also real stars, but, regrettably, ours are not (with perhaps one exception). Some of our veterans are having problems playing to their capabilities this season, too, which makes things even more difficult. That still ought not to prevent them from trying to assert leadership in a manner that commands respect by openly taking on responsibility for the team's performance or lack of it.
What have our veterans done in this regard? Not much, from what I can see. There have been no team meetings, no public statements.
I have to agree with your interpretation... Leadership & strength of character are what the team needs. However, it seems that many of the players we depend on to display these qualities are too busy finding their own game. However, I believe that through adversity comes opportunity. For example, I think this may be an opportunity for Higgins to display his apparent ease with the leadership role.
Perhaps he could spend some time with Beliveau to see if some of that legendary deplomacy might be transferable.
I have been saying for a long time that the Habs need a tough guy, and I do mean a tough guy, read: Laraque, Boogaard. It can only help the team by making all of our players feel a couple of inches taller, several pounds heavier and a whole lot braver: = confidence/production. Beliveau feels the same way.... wow! Come on BG... you have tried everything else. you have nothing to lose and everything to gain!
Montreal doesn't need to "tank" the season, the way things are going they will find the bottom naturally.
I agree with the poster who said if Stamkos or Tavares refused to sign with Montreal like Lindros did with the Nordiques, it wouldn't necessarily be a bad thing although highly unlikely. I'm sure they have much better agents than Eric did (Mon and Dad). The Nordiques eventually won a Stanley Cup with the harvest they reaped from Philly as the Avalanche, albeit aided by our Canadiens when Reggie Houle kindly donated Patrick Roy to the cause.
It doesn't take great inferencing skills to figure out that Jean really doesn't think much of our current team.
Guy Lafleur already had his say....and Jean Beliveau has added his coments, and because he isn't saying what YOU want him to say, he's not giving "his true assessment of the team". So what, is he lying so he doesn't make the national news.....Come there Bud, did you ever think he sits there game after game, 3 rows back, knows the team, the players and the coaching staff, the goings on, the ins and the outs and made a true assessment of the team.
you really think Chicago and Pits "tanked" the season for higher draft choices...come on !!!!!
I really like Beliveau's take on the current situation, and it was a great idea to ask him what he thought.
I definitely agree that it's not up to the rookies to change the world. The vets are the ones that are lagging, and they're the ones who need to find ways to win, using the rookies' talents to their advantage. I wonder if they understand that it's their job to "CREATE A REACTION" (just like Ford).
As Bob McKenzie reports, the Ducks need to clear some room for Neidermeyer's return and may get rid of Brad May and/or Shane Hnidy. Neither one is a heavyweight (or a talented hockey player), but either one could add some toughness to the Habs' lineup. Either one would be a popular guy with his teammates. As much as I hate the guy, May could play on the Habs fourth line, and Hnidy is good enough to be the Habs 6th D, ahead of Breezer. The Habs should trade Gorges if they aren't going to play him and can't put in Hamilton without losing him on waivers.
Sorry folks, but adding a guy like Brad May is a little easier than trading for Lecavalier, Marleau, Hossa or any of those other guys we wish we could steal.
I couldn't agree more and after watching the highlights from all of the western hockey last night you'd think they are playing the East coast style of hockey and vice versa. The body checks and hammering are incredible. In my view it would be very difficult for any team in the east to play equal to most of the teams in the west because they are playing tougher straight up hockey. They're playing as if its like the playoffs now. We should take note and learn.
Unfortunately, what this team needs to do is tank for several seasons, and get the high 1st-round draft picks, same as Chicago has done, same as Pittsburgh did. I'm not sure how we would all feel about that, though.
In response to the comment about Stamkos or Taveres pulling a Lindros & refusing to sign with the Habs - Quebec received a HUGE package for Lindros, and I suspect that Taveres would command a similar price, from which we would undoubtedly benefit. It can be argued that Quebec became a far better team because of the trade than if they had kept a willing Lindros.
I just posted below the same thing, NOW there's a lottery among the last 5 finishers, so finishing last DOESN'T guarantee the top pick. Pens twice in a row and chicago won the lottery and got to pick first in the last 3 years.
Ali B.
Leadership starts with the veterans, not the 20 year olds. Unfortunately our veterans thus far are gutless and useless. Time to clean house and bring players that want to play for the love of the game, not money. I have zero hope for this edition of the Canadiens.
"And from where Béliveau sits - in his regular seats three rows behind the Canadiens bench, near enough to see the veins bulging on the neck of head coach Guy Carbonneau - the club no longer has a speed advantage in the NHL, and it could use a little more muscle." - Jean-Beliveau
LOL, love the bit about the veins in Carbo's neck.. :p I agree with Beliveau though he knows what he's talking about.
Not tough enough? Not skilled enough? Not Price's fault? Not coach Guy's fault? Not the fans fault? These sound like the ravings of a madman.
Jean Beliveau is a not only a great hockey player but a true gentleman and an upstanding human being. I do not think it is in his nature to give his true assessment of the team. Actually I do not think he could do it because if he did speak out his comments would make the national news. I think he was being his charitable self by saying that the team was small and did not have a skating advantage. I am not sure what he meant what he said that Carbo juggled his lines because he did not have the players to stay together.
What we need is an interview with Guy Lafleur to get a candid review of the team's play.
Every article on the team is about line juggling. Come on guys did a little deeper. Line juggling is not the problem. I am beginning to think if you speak out you might get banned by the team.
mjames
Please ... lets leave Guy Lafleur out of this. I'll take Mr. Beliveau's wisdom over Guy's backhanded comments any day. While I loved Guy as the most dynamic Hab since the Rocket, he was and is not the sharpest tool in the shed. As a player, Lafleur had dash, flair and a great shot but is not a incisive analyst of the game. Why do you think he's never been a coach at any level? Le Gros Bill, on the other hand, could have been a coach or GM, but found the perfect organisational fit as the ambassador. He remains a student of the game, while 'tit Guy is the kid in the back of the class firing spit balls at his classmates.
As for tanking the season, get real! The Habs just need to keep filling the prospect pipeline and let the drafting cards fall where they may. So far BG has shown that he makes his draft decisions based on his scouts assessments, ignoring the screams of the french press and other fanatics, many of which are posting here. I hate to say it, but we need to model one of original six rivals, the Wings, on how to build and maintain a winner. How many top 5 or top 10 draft picks have the Wings had in the last 10 or 15 years? Yet they have been the most successful franchise in the league since the early 90's. That building process started in the mid-eighties and great scouting has been the key. I believe (at least I hope) that Gainey is following the same path, so les canadiens' next glory years last for a couple of decades.
What you need is an interview with a former player, present player, or anyone who will voice the same opinion that you have been voicing for over a year now.
To suggest that Beliveau camouflages his comments and opinion, or is afraid to speak out against the organization....how self-serving is that? I believe Mr. Beliveau could, and would, say whatever he is thinking. I don't think he is afraid of anyone.
I don't know what you folks were reading! Not critical? Beliveau is calling out the veterans on the team. He says the Habs aren't fast enough or tough enough (the latter is easier to find than the former). He basically says: find a tough guy. And he implies that overall, Gainey has not provided the coach with enough talent to put together solid lines. I thought he was rather critical and pretty blunt for such an elder statemen so close to the team. Then again, maybe my perception is warped because I don't listen to the hysteria of sports radio.
When the great Belliveau speaks people should listen. He talks about what everyone here knows, they need an elite player. Since you can't trade for one and nobody will go to Montreal willingly, unfortunately there is only one other choice, finish last. Next year would be a good time to do that.