What’s a Carlyle Guy? Leafs quickly learning
New coach, new attitude put players in a fight for the finals — and their jobs
As if to contradict his reputation as a grim drill sergeant, Leafs coach Randy Carlyle began Monday’s practice with a laugh.
He threw a couple of pucks on the ice and ordered some 25 skaters to engage in two simultaneous shinny games. He added a twist: The lefties had to shoot right-handed. The righties shot left.
What ensued was a hilarious mélange of tentative puck-handling, off-target passing, mile-wide shooting. A Ron Wilson-era Leafs game! Kidding aside, after that brief bit of foolishness, a no-nonsense workout dragged on for most of two hours. It’s at moments like this that the concerns of sports fans and their idols don’t always go hand in hand. As the season nears its final month, Leafs Nation continues to obsess over an eternal question: Specifically, are we a playoff team? (The eternal answer is maybe yes, probably no).
But for the millionaire mercenaries who wear the blue and white, there’s another pressing unknown. Players privately wonder: Will the new coach’s view of the game jibe with the way I play it? Or, put more simply: Am I a Carlyle Guy?
Carlyle, who replaced Wilson in the lead-up to Saturday’s 3-1 win in Montreal, is the beneficiary of a contract that ties him to the Leafs for the remainder of this season and three beyond it. For athletes keen to remain ensconced in Toronto, the coming 17 games — including Tuesday night’s home date with the Boston Bruins — amount not only to a last-ditch playoff push, but to an extended audition. Carlyle, after all, is already demanding changes in the Leafs style of game. How long before he suggests changes in the men who play it?
As Mike Komisarek, the veteran defenceman, said Monday: “Once the coach is changed, you know the players are the ones to go next.”
Carlyle Guys won’t be going anywhere, of course. So, as a public service, we present a helpful guide: Frequently Asked Questions of Would-be Carlyle Guys. What is a Carlyle Guy? He’s a Leaf whose play consistently pleases Carlyle. So . . . what is a Carlyle Guy again? Thanks for logging on, team captain Dion Phaneuf. We’ll simplify. As GM Brian Burke said recently, your new coach likes “a crude game.” So, hit. Fight. Grind. Be like Mike (Brown). Watch how physical types like Luke Schenn and Komisarek raise their stock in the new system. And if you need a more specific example, remember that play in Montreal on Saturday when Erik Cole blasted past you as though you were rebooting your brain? At that moment, Dion, you were not a Carlyle Guy. Reboot on the bench.
If I don’t fight or hit or grind, can I still be a Carlyle Guy?
We doubt it, Tim Connolly, Matthew Lombardi and Cody Franson, but we’re pulling for you. It’s true that Carlyle wasn’t a fighter. As a player he was a Norris Trophywinning offensive defenceman. (He was also, if you’re looking for ammunition in a future dressingroom shouting match, a career minus-135). But as a coach, he demands defence, even if you’re known for offence.
But what if I’m known for, like, lots of offence?
Yes, Phil Kessel, he’ll make some exceptions for the gifted. But a Carlyle Guy doesn’t traditionally roam the ice in lazy loops. He changes direction by stopping hard and restarting harder. (In case you’d blacked out by then, Carlyle actually made the Leafs practise stops and starts, a drill last seen by most in tyke, near the end of Monday’s workout).
But you realize stops and starts is just a stupid practice drill, and that some of us are NHL all-stars, right?
We can tell you that Craig Button, the former NHL GM and TSN analyst, remembers watching Carlyle coach a game when all-star forward Ryan Getzlaf was caught floating. “Randy was just hollering, ‘Getzlaaaaaaf! Get baaaaaack!’” Button says. Getzlaf is a two-time 25-goal man. So no one is immune to Carlyle’s exacting standards. What if I’ve been in the habit of losing high-risk gambles ever since my previous coach called me the best defenceman in the league “by a country mile?” Relax, Dion. Button thinks Carlyle will help you reassert yourself as a physical force. Not that a Carlyle Guy can afford to routinely cough up the puck (and you and your Leafs, who have committed the second-most giveaways in the league according to Nhl.com, will need to iron out that issue). What if we don’t? Carlyle is hardly a riddle-spouting enigma. As Burke said Friday, he gives his players “clearly defined tasks.” Connolly, your task appears to be to avoid publicly crying now that you’ve gone from October’s No. 1 centre to March’s fourth-line scrounger. And as for you, Dion, he’s spelling out the captain’s gig: “If there are things that I’m doing that are upsetting (Phaneuf) or his teammates, I think it’s important that they have the comfort to come (and) let me know.” Would a Carlyle Guy tell the coach that the team is upset with these two-hour practices? We thought you were paying attention here! And just to be clear: The coach isn’t expecting you to play wrong-handed Tuesday night against the Bruins. That was just a stupid practice drill. Stops and starts, on the other hand . . .