The Issues with Babcock

• • The Lineup Card: To be fair this will be the issue we always have with any coach. Especially when you look at the bottom of lineup. Why is Petan, Leivo, or Holl sitting instead of Gauthier, Ozhiganov, or Lindholm? Why is Marleau on the third line instead of the fourth? These are the small issues we will constantly kick dirt about regardless of who is in charge. Some of the bigger issues are Ron Hainsey on the top pairing, William Nylander being stapled to the fourth line, and pretty much anytime that Connor Brown or Patrick Marleau were played in the top six throughout the season. You can likely also include that very shortly lived Morgan Rielly and Jake Muzzin pairing which ended after two games and say both Rielly and Muzzin tethered to boat anchor partners.

• Player Usage: Pretty much an extension of what is above, and that is the continuous rolling of four lines to the point of seeing far too much of Freddie Gauthier in the 3rd period of an elimination game. It’s the belief that Connor Brown and Patrick Marleau could be complimentary wingers to William Nylander who seemed on an island the entire series. There’s the amount of ice time that Ron Hainsey and Nikita Zaitsev have received throughout the season and there’s the lack of ice time for John Tavares and Auston Matthews in the playoffs. Again, none of this really seems to make Babcock a candidate for firing, but was damned frustrating, clearly ineffective, and at least warrants some serious discussion around what he’d do differently in the future.I’ll also make note of my objection to the high usage of Frederik Andersen down the stretch of the regular season after he returned from injury.
• Coaching the team against their strengths: This comes down to a lot of leadership philosophy that again, is something where there are many schools of thought and I clearly don’t share the same philosophy as Babcock. The Leafs are built to be a fast paced offensive juggernaut, that will be light on defense, high on offense and with a goaltender that on most nights can bail the team out on enough of their mistakes. Mike Babcock is much more inclined to roll four lines, and three pairings of players playing a 200 foot game, and it was also very noticeable when the Leafs transitioned from trying to score, to protecting a lead, a task that seemed more costly than beneficial.The focus on fixing weaknesses rather than playing to strengths is a fault in my opinion, and one that make Mike Babcock an unappealing option as a coach. My personal preference lends itself to servant leadership, and a “players coach” who is going to give his players what they need to be successful in their roles, not the structured director approach taken by Mike Babcock.
• No adaption: It seems like expecting things to change in game is never going to happen with Mike Babcock. You might get a couple of new line combinations, but he seems married to his game plan and deviating from it would be admitting early defeat for him. “Stay the course” is a lousy philosophy but it seems to be one he holds dear.
• Line matching: He’s not good at it. A big part of this seems to come from the fact he hasn’t realized that his team should be setting the pace for the game. He’s not sending Zetterberg over the boards to matchup against Crosby and then having Datsyuk to matchup against Malkin, he’s sending Tavares and Matthews over the boards and should leave the Bruins scrambling to see which center they want Bergeron to matchup against.

The History of Babcock’s “Winning Ways”

The Shit Sandwich

1.  When he got to Toronto the Leafs were in complete disarray. Mike Babcock’s systems and rigid structure is what the Maple Leafs needed in the first couple of seasons. The young players needed to learn the game at a pro level and the defensive pairings needed to know where their partner was going to be, and there were a lot of lingering bad habits from Randy Carlyle that needed to be purged from special teams. Mike Babcock’s approach might not be the most innovative or cutting edge, but it is tested and safe. That got the Leafs pretty far and talent got them the rest of the way.Remember, it’s not that Mike Babcock hasn’t been good for the Leafs, it’s just a question if he’s the right coach to help them take the next step.
2. Mike Babcock is a hell of a lot better than most random coaches looking for work. Let’s say you’re picking between who is available at the moment which includes Mike Yeo, Dave Hakstol, Randy Carlyle, Phil Housley, Guy Boucher, and John Stevens. Throw-in all of the junior and AHL coaches, and NHL assistants that would jump at the opportunity to coach in the NHL, and that’s essentially the talent pool. It’s not easy to make a case for moving on from Mike Babcock. We’ll explore options in a bit more detail later, but for now he certainly seems like the best available guy.
3. He knows the personnel. With a large number of players still in their early 20s and developing into the prime of their careers, perhaps there is an advantage to continue to move those players forward in a steady direction. He’s worked with Matthews, Marner, Nylander, etc. and knows what motivates them, and how to push them. We could also be operating under the false notion that there is more that he can get out of these players, when in fact he’s the one who has pushed them beyond what should have been expected of him. We don’t know and perhaps that familiarity is important.

Where does this leave us?

1. Chalk this up to an unfortunate loss. We recognize that Mike Babcock is good at what he does and he’s the best coach for the team moving forward. We still continue to question every action he takes since that’s what hockey fans do and we trust that Babcock, Dubas, and company will be spending a hell of lot more time than will dissecting what went wrong in the back half of the season through the playoffs. We acknowledge the leash is a little shorter, but understand that the organization thinks it is too early to move on from someone they’ve invested so heavily in, and has a reputation that draws in top talent from around the league.
2. Baby steps towards a coaching change. The assistant coaching structure of the Leafs certainly seems like it will come under review regardless of what happens with Babcock. Special teams and defense have been completely unacceptable at times given the talent the Leafs have on their roster and that will need to be visited. Additionally the roster needs to continue to transition towards being as talented as it can be and not designed for heavy hockey, 200 foot hockey, whatever other cliche model you want to throw out there. The veteran comfort food players like Ron Hainsey need to go, including Patrick Marleau is there is a way of making that happen (probably not.) and players like Zaitsev who are seemingly used 20 minutes a night solely for the hand he uses to shoot the puck need to be jettisoned as well. The Leafs shouldn’t be a Mike Babcock team, they should be the team that Mike Babcock coaches and that could also mean that Kyle Dubas plays a bigger role in selecting future assistant coaches, which should include moving Sheldon Keefe up from the Marlies so he can gain NHL bench experience.
3. The hell with it. Fire him. As much as this is where I sit, it’s got the greatest amount of uncertainty attached to it. I mentioned in those tweets above that I’d rush Mike Babcock out the door if Bruce Boudreau was available. He isn’t. I’d probably do the same for another round of Paul Maurice coaching the Leafs. As of this moment he’s still the Jets Head Coach. At this point Sheldon Keefe is too green to feel completely comfortable with as the option behind the bench, but there are plenty of times that inexperience has proven to work out for a team when they’ve moved on from experience. Bruce Cassidy in Boston is a fair example of that and Jon Cooper is the extreme example that we seek.Current assistant coaches like Todd Nelson, Kris Knoblauch, Kirk Muller, Todd Richards, Mike van Ryn, Larry Robinson, and Brad Shaw all have some appeal, and four of those guys have NHL head coach experience, while the other three have had the head coach role at another level. John Stevens is probably the most appealing option of the recently fired head coaches, but his track record isn’t inspiring.
4. Promote him? Let’s get on the Oilers model and let Babcock fail upwards. Assistant GM Mike Babcock has a nice ring to it and there is a lot of worthwhile hockey knowledge in that head of his. Do I see this happening at all? No. Did I want to provide a fourth option that was a little unexpected? Yes.

What will happen?