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Babcock fired by the Leafs discussion

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The Podium said:
Everything you posted in here is wrong. Yes, I understand that it is a bit premature to be gushing over the new coach when he has barely had time to actually implement his system. But pay attention to the small details, not the overall game. He has clearly encouraged his players to maintain possession rather than chip and chase or stretch pass. He has clearly instructed players to come lower in the D zone rather than waiting at the point to clear the zone. The leafs are taking a triangle approach where the puck carrier always has 3 options, with the third always behind with momentum. This team is playing possession hockey, taking low risk short passes to gain zone entry, which wasnt the case under Babcock. Once they are in the Ozone, they are forcing the puck to the slot, and using the same triangle approach to maintain possession and cycle effectively.

The system is different, definitely better, and the players are responding with inspired play and a smile on their faces.
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I think you make excellent points on our new style and its effectiveness. I always found that dumping the puck in and chasing it was the equivalent of fumbling the ball at the 5 yard line and hoping to recover it in the end zone. It just made zero sense to me. If we had big bangers and crashers that would paste the D into the boards...then it would be effective..but not with our team.
 
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ACC1224 said:
Yeah, was pretty childish on his part.
He did seem like he needed to prove to everyone that his way would work contrary to the results.

Lets hope it works out better for the new Coach.
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He basically flexed on his history of winning and stuck with his ego. If he was even I don't know 10% malleable I feel like life would've made it a lot easier for the leafs.

I lost a lot of respect for the guy after hearing what has happened but that doesn't mean this guy is a bad coach as some are saying. Hopefully he learns from this and actually learns about adaptability.
 
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If I had a dysfunctional locker room and needed an overbearing force of will to turn it around I may consider hiring him for a max 3 year term. That way he doesn’t get too comfortable thinking he can take his time, he’ll try to win every night instead of these head games he seems to play.
I’d also have a clear talk about those mind games he likes so much and where he should shove them.

barring that situation I wouldn’t want him anywhere near my team.
 
The Podium said:
Everything you posted in here is wrong. Yes, I understand that it is a bit premature to be gushing over the new coach when he has barely had time to actually implement his system. But pay attention to the small details, not the overall game. He has clearly encouraged his players to maintain possession rather than chip and chase or stretch pass. He has clearly instructed players to come lower in the D zone rather than waiting at the point to clear the zone. The leafs are taking a triangle approach where the puck carrier always has 3 options, with the third always behind with momentum. This team is playing possession hockey, taking low risk short passes to gain zone entry, which wasnt the case under Babcock. Once they are in the Ozone, they are forcing the puck to the slot, and using the same triangle approach to maintain possession and cycle effectively.

The system is different, definitely better, and the players are responding with inspired play and a smile on their faces.
Click to expand...
definitely better? Ok. I mean the previous 'bad' coach and his super-important system saw the Leafs coming off 100 point and 105 point seasons so unless the new and definitely-better system produces 120 point seasons then what I said is true. Coaches and system just don't matter that much. The talent on the roster is what matters. What makes some players more talented is their deking and skating and shooting etc. and that extra talent shows up in every system, and that extra is what decides wins and losses. Like controlling the puck across the blueline is great, but so are variations of dump and chase because they both serve the same purpose, which is to get the puck controlled in the other teams end and hopefully some space for your talented players to work their magic. And it worked terrific for the Leafs for years and saw their stars put up loads of stats for themselves and the team put up 100 and 105 point seasons. But three playoff exits in a row, mostly because of goaltending which has nothing to do with coaching, and a bad start to the season and the fans turned on all things Babcock. Which is fine the players probably did too. But the talent here is the same and the new staff will be hard pressed to improve on the results the old one so letting our announcers work everyone into a fervor over the new coach and his miracle tonic is not doing him any favors imo. And if it's because of shanahan and dubas using their authority with Rogers people I hope they have been listening to the games because it's getting pretty cringey.
 
Gary Nylund said:
Team Canada winning with Babcock and losing without him is just coincidence IMO. Sometimes we win, sometimes we lose, it's not like Babcock is the only guy who knows how to coach and just like any team, it's mostly the players and not the coach who decides things in the end. Plus there's the issue of sample size, these tournaments are so short so ... no way to prove it either way.
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Ok. Let's say it was mostly a coincidence then that Babcock didn't perform in Toronto. It was probably mostly on the players and winning or losing a playoff series like the one versus Boston is almost as much luck as winning or losing in an international tournament.
 
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And, yes, I was happy to see Babcock join the team. But I obviously didn't know about his abusive tendencies. It's fine, and not inconsistent, to have had both opinions with imperfect information.
 
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stonec said:
Ok. Let's say it was mostly a coincidence then that Babcock didn't perform in Toronto. It was probably mostly on the players and winning or losing a playoff series like the one versus Boston is almost as much luck as winning or losing in an international tournament.
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It's not co-incedence at all that Babcock didn't perform in Toronto (why would it be?) and he did just fine the first couple of years. And it's not luck when we're talking about hundreds of games (NHL) vs the handful of games for Team Canada, that's where sample size comes into play.

Agree that it's mostly on the players and in the case of the Leafs, the players deserve blame for the way they played. That said, I also believe that the coach in this case deserves more "credit" than usual for the record as he just sucked the life out of the players. When a coach isn't respected by his players, that can have a huge effect as we've all now seen.

I think you could assign a certain baseline level to every team with a random coach. Now you give them the best coach in the world, he can make them a bit better but there's only so much a coach can do. Like take Detroit for example, no matter who the coach is, there's a limit to how good they can be. Now give a team the worst possible coach and I think there's potential for the team to be much worse then their baseline level. I've never thought of this before but it seems logical. And what's happened to the Leafs in 2019 seems to be a good argument for this being true.
 
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usernamezrhardtodo said:
I think you make excellent points on our new style and its effectiveness. I always found that dumping the puck in and chasing it was the equivalent of fumbling the ball at the 5 yard line and hoping to recover it in the end zone. It just made zero sense to me. If we had big bangers and crashers that would paste the D into the boards...then it would be effective..but not with our team.
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yeah but that was with old man Babcock and his silly old outdated ways. That old coot's team put up 100 point seasons and his stars put up mountains of personal stats, so imagine the stats they're about to put up now that we have a real coach, and a real system.
 
stonec said:
Ok. Let's say it was mostly a coincidence then that Babcock didn't perform in Toronto. It was probably mostly on the players and winning or losing a playoff series like the one versus Boston is almost as much luck as winning or losing in an international tournament.
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If they lose for the same reasons consistently over a several hundred game sample, it's probably not a coincidence.
 
Man Bear Pig said:
I'd still take Babcock over quite a few currently employed NHL coaches. Let's not forget that we had guys like Wilson and Carlyle here in recent years.
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Who have a Stanley cup and a Olympic silver between them. Maybe those aren't good ways to judge a coach.
 
Walshy7 said:
Babcock fired by the Leafs discussion

i thought this thread was about how our leafs discussion got him fired. Need some punctuation in there
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Lol, who knows, maybe the multitude of threads we made calling for his head helped the process along.
 
Shouldve kept babs on board as primarily a recruiter... the guy must know how to make a good first impression. :sarcasm: mikheyev really wanted to play for him... he must have been shocked when he found out what the players rewlly though once he arrived.
 
Antropovsky said:
Shouldve kept babs on board as primarily a recruiter... the guy must know how to make a good first impression. :sarcasm: mikheyev really wanted to play for him... he must have been shocked when he found out what the players rewlly though once he arrived.
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I wanted Babcock promoted into a VP of something irrelevant role but it wasn't doable after the Marner story came out.
 
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