Coming tonight: The life of Carbo

Guy Carbonneau behind the bench during the Canadiens' 6-3 loss Saturday in Toronto.
Bruce Bennett, Getty Images

Being on the road with the Canadiens does afford certain advantages. Saturday, I wandered into the hotel restaurant at 8 a.m. and wound up enjoying a 90-minute breakfast with Habs legend Larry Robinson. No recorder, no notebook, just a terrific, casual visit with an icon of the game.

Then I spent a half-hour alone in the lobby with head coach Guy Carbonneau over a tall coffee to discuss, on the record, his two-plus seasons behind the bench.

We talked about how coaching in Montreal impacts pretty much every part of Carbonneau's life; the decision to return to the city where he starred as a player; what's harder, being captain or coach in Montreal, having done both, and how he views Saku Koivu in the role as the former; the advice he gets from fans (and there's plenty); the microscopic attention paid to every decision he makes, by fans and the city's famously fickle media; and the life lesson that coaching the Canadiens is proving to be.

(Carbo said he's able to leave behind a bad game to focus on the next one. Wondering how easily Saturday's disgrace against Toronto was to forget?)

The feature will be posted here late Sunday night, along with full audio of our conversation.