Carbonneau keeps juggling his lines like a Cirque du Soleil juggler, trying to find some chemistry among his players, but since they don’t play together for more than a few shifts, it’s hard to build chemistry.

You know, when teams are flailing the coach is almost always criticized for (a) changing his line combinations too much; or (b) stubbornly sticking to line combinations that aren’t working. Generally it’s the former, because one of the few things that coaches can control is who plays with whom. Players who are not playing well get benched – and there’s been no shortage of candidates on the Habs – and that alone necessitates line combination changes.

Panicking teams fire their coaches when adversity hits – and it doesn’t work. It gives the players an excuse, and pretty soon the season goes down the toilet (see Senators, 2008). Gainey doesn’t panic, and I would be very surprised if he fires Cabonneau mid-season.

And this: that’s the job of the coach to make the players care is ridiculous. The players are paid millions of dollars per season to care.

IMHO, what’s happened to the Habs this year is that too many players (notably the first line) seemed to think that last year’s success would simply carry over and they’re not working for it. They spend too much time settling scores with cheap hits and waiting for the goals to go in on their own. Hopefully now they’re learning humility and they’ll bottom out soon – and start listening to the coach again because he knows what he’s talking about.

I thought this line was a brilliant piece of insight:

When you give up, it means you don’t care, and that’s the job of the coach to make the players care, which is not happening right now.

Whether or not the players care is a moot point. Just like most of us, they’re paid to perform a job regardless of whether they care. They’re the ones that should be held accountable, not Carbo.

“My best move as GM was hiring Guy Carbonneau as the head coach” – paraphrased Bob Gainey quote, early January 2009 at mid-season press conference

With 11 players hitting UFA status, and Guy signed for 3 years beyond this one, you can bet that the coach isn’t the one that will be going if this slide continues. This is a rare case where the GM CAN fire the players.

Gainey is in deep hibernation!! If he doesn’t react quickly, he’ll be canned as well as Carbonneau, it happened to Serge Savard, why not Gainey?!!

Firing the coach is a weak kneed move, and something Bob Gainey has never done to a man he’s hired. Expecting it, calling for it, writing about it, or waiting for it to happen shows an absolute misunderstanding of this Canadiens regime, not to mention the hockey club in general.