Professional sports is a funny business. You can be on top of the world one season and fall from grace faster than a Xhekaj slapshot gets to the net the next. A year removed from their 24th Stanley Cup win, the Montreal Canadiens were swiftly eliminated from the playoffs by their Adams division rivals, the Boston Bruins, and trouble in paradise followed.
The Build-up
The Canadiens had an awful end to their 1993-1994 season, losing their last game to the Detroit Red Wings by a score of 9-0 with Patrick Roy and Ron Tugnutt splitting the game in net. To say that the Habs weren’t in the best frame of mind would be an understatement. Head coach Jacques Demers only made matters worst when he told the Canadian Press “It’s simple with us, we’re good when Patrick Roy gets the first star.”
The first-round of the playoffs didn’t go according to plan either. After a brilliant performance from St-Patrick in the second game, the Canadiens came back to Montreal all tied up at one. On the morning of the third game however, Roy is taken to the hospital because of an appendicitis. Tugnutt finds himself between the pipes and can’t contain the Bruins, leading the media to once again say the Habs are nothing without their number one goaltender.
That’s one time too many and captain Guy Carbonneau had had enough, so he voices it to the press. In short, he believes in teamwork and even though some players have a more predominant role on every team, it’s not fair to say the Canadiens are nothing without their masked man. The center also adds that they’ve been told they’re nothing without Roy so often, that they might have started believing it.
With Casseau back in net thanks to some antibiotics, the Canadiens win the next two games, but they cannot seal the deal in game 6 and the Bruins take the series in 7. This is the first time the Habs fail to make it to the second round since Serge Savard took over the GM duties, but that doesn’t mean the fans and media will let the team off easy.
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In the season’s post-mortem, Savard announces there will be changes in the off-season. He feels his team wasn’t hungry enough. As for Demers, once again questioned about his admiration for his goaltender, he brushes off the question saying it’s normal that the biggest stars are the most talked about players in their home markets. The GM is also asked if the Canadiens can still win with Carbonneau as their captain and he replies:
I don’t know. Not for the next ten years in any case. He’ll go through the chopper like everyone else. Maurice Richard, Guy Lafleur, me…we’ve all been there.
Days later, Carbonneau is photographed on a golf course making an unkind gesture towards a Journal de Montreal photographer, an incident which many still believe caused what was to follow.
The Trade
In late August, Carbonneau makes the headlines once again in Montreal, but through no fault of his own. Savard has traded him to the St. Louis Blues for Jim Montgomery. An undrafted player who has been in the NHL for a single season. The centerman has 67 games of experience in the big league and 20 points to his name.
Meanwhile the Blues are landing a former third-round pick, the 44th selection of the 1979 draft (the rounds were somewhat shorter back then). In 13 years with the Canadiens, Carbo has played over 900 games, gathered 547 points and three Frank J. Selke trophies as the best defensive forward. St. Louis is also getting a leader, someone who wore the C in one of the biggest hockey markets for five years and learned from one of the best in Bob Gainey.
The Aftermath
Montgomery played a grand total of five games with the Canadiens before moving to the Philadelphia Flyers. He never managed to become a real regular in the NHL and when all was said and done he had played 122 games with the big boys.
He has, however, coached 226 games of NHL hockey to this day, and he’s had more success behind the bench than on the ice. His record currently stands at 139-58-29 and he’ll no doubt get to improve it this upcoming season as he’s still at the helm of the Bruins right now.
Carbonneau spent a single season with the Blues, appearing in 42 games before being traded to the Dallas Stars for Paul Broten prior to the next season. The former Canadiens captain would spend the last five years of his career in Texas winning the third Stanley Cup of his career and becoming a teammate’s father-in-law when captain-to-be Brendan Morrow married his daughter Anne-Marie in 2002.
© Kyle Terada-USA TODAY Sports
After retiring, Carbonneau became a coach and he came back to town to take the helm of the Canadiens for three seasons. He coached 230 NHL games before being dismissed, so at least Montgomery will have him beat there. He’s at 226 games and will no doubt overtake him this season.
There’s no contest in this one. The Canadiens lost that trade without a shadow of a doubt. Not only did they trade a player who still had good mileage left, but less than 18 months later, they would also trade Patrick Roy and by then Jacques Demers had also been fired. Just like Savard himself come to think of it.
*Article based on Serge Savard’s book Canadien jusqu’au bout
Related
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