MONTREAL -- Guy Carbonneau was asking for it when he requested the job of Wayne Gretzky's shadow in Game 2 of the Stanley Cup final on Thursday night.
Most players would dread such an assignment, but Carbonneau was looking forward to his first head-to-head playoff matchup with the prolific Los Angeles star.
Gretzky, who collected a goal and three assists in the Kings' 4-1 Game 1 victory, was handcuffed by Carbonneau and the resilient Canadiens Thursday night en route to Montreal's 3-2 overtime triumph that evened the championship series at one game apiece.
Carbonneau helped shut down the Kings' usually potent power play in eight chances, dropping to the ice to get in front of shots set up by Gretzky's pin-point passing.
'We let him do what he wanted in the first game but we went after him tonight,' said Carbonneau, who only played four minutes opposite Gretzky in Game 1 as Montreal Coach Jacques Demers rotated players in search of an effective antidote.
Gretzky has 50 career points in the Stanley Cup finals but was prevented from picking up the lone point he needs to pass Hall-of-Famer Gordie Howe on the all-time list.
'He did a great job,' said Gretzky of Carbonneau, whose positioning and superior footwork enable him to keep up with the game's trickier players. 'We didn't play a whole lot against eachother (5-on-5) but he did a nice job on me. I think he had a tremendous game for them tonight. '
Carbonneau was so good, he managed to turn a 5-on-3 skating disadvantage for the Canadiens early in the third period into a partial breakaway. The defensive specialist scooped the puck up on the left- defensive boards and sped past Gretzky at the point before skating in on Kelly Hrudey. With Jari Kurri draped all over him, Carbonneau could only manage a weak shot that Hrudey easily smothered.
After the failed scoring bid, Carbonneau sat on the bench with a towel flung across his shoulder, solemnly shaking his head.
But the three-time Selke trophy winner as the league's best defensive forward found solace in the trump card he and Demers were waiting to throw down at the right time.
That moment came late in the game, when Los Angeles defenseman Marty McSorley was hit with a two-minute minor for his illegally curved stick. Eric Desjardins wound up scoring a goal on the ensuing power play that sent the game into overtime and capped his first career playoff hat trick to win the game.
Carbonneau spotted the stick in Game 1 and the Canadiens blew the whistle on McSorley when trailing 2-1 late in the game and facing going down 2-0 in the series.
When asked, Montreal Coach Jacques Demers refused to reveal who reported to him about the stick, which referee Kerry Fraser measured before sending McSorley to the box.
'It's only for me to know -- I'm not going to say nothing,' Demers said from the coaches' platform.
An unsuspecting Carbonneau identified himself as the mysterious stick sleuth in the Canadiens' locker room while Demers was winding up his conference with the media.
'It was me who spotted the stick,' said Carbonneau.
Demers and his captain may have gotten their signals crossed on that one, but there won't be any mystery about who will be checking No. 99 in Game 3 of the series Saturday night.
