News and Blog Report: - Babcock | Page 32 | HFBoards - NHL Message Board and Forum for National Hockey League

News and Blog Report: Babcock

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I keep hoping this is all a smoke screen for Vegas to release Cassidy and allow him to talk to teams, Then the Oilers circle back and sign him to a 5 year deal.

Nurse gets dealt. Oilers trade for a competent LHD on a cheap deal who fills in when Walman gets hurt.

Oilers trade for two goalies, moving out Tristan Jarry and end up getting a decent tandem.

Howard gets a full time NHL gig.

Murphy signs.

This is a dream I have.
 
I keep hoping this is all a smoke screen for Vegas to release Cassidy and allow him to talk to teams, Then the Oilers circle back and sign him to a 5 year deal.

Nurse gets dealt. Oilers trade for a competent LHD on a cheap deal who fills in when Walman gets hurt.

Oilers trade for two goalies, moving out Tristan Jarry and end up getting a decent tandem.

Howard gets a full time NHL gig.

Murphy signs.

This is a dream I have.
Playoffs are over and there's still not a peep from Vegas, and now you have teams out of the division filling vacancies. Vegas may very well just hold Cassidy hostage for the year.
 
I keep hoping this is all a smoke screen for Vegas to release Cassidy and allow him to talk to teams, Then the Oilers circle back and sign him to a 5 year deal.

Nurse gets dealt. Oilers trade for a competent LHD on a cheap deal who fills in when Walman gets hurt.

Oilers trade for two goalies, moving out Tristan Jarry and end up getting a decent tandem.

Howard gets a full time NHL gig.

Murphy signs.

This is a dream I have.

Call me a doomer but here's what's actually gonna happen:

Oilers hire Babcock and Trade Nurse for a forward on a bad contract. These two things lead to Murphy testing the market. Walman has his standard injury plagued season causing the team to run Stastney - Emberson as the middle pairing for a good third of the year or more.

Bowman strikes out on whatever impact forwards he's targeting who sign elsewhere and/or refuse to waive for Edmonton because they hired Babcock to be the coach. He reacts by panic signing Dickinson to a 3 year 15 million dollar contract with a full NMC in the first two years and Kapanen to a 4 year 12 million dollar contract.

The Oilers land Cossa but learn the hard way that Detroit wasn't playing him because he's not that good actually. Jarry continues to be useless.

The core 5 step up and carry the team(again), but the Oilers are only a borderline playoff team by the deadline. Bowman trades the 1st for a middle pairing defender who doesn't move the needle and the team has excess unspent cap space after the deadline.

Oilers finish in WC2 and get swept by Minnesota in the first round. Katz cleans house but it's probably too little too late for the teams contention window.
 
If this goes through Katz needs to get in front of a mic and justify it, because by all accounts this is his hire.

Bowman, Nicholson, whoever, don't care. Get Katz in front of the media.
 
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Playoffs are over and there's still not a peep from Vegas, and now you have teams out of the division filling vacancies. Vegas may very well just hold Cassidy hostage for the year.
That was simply a delay tactic, releasing him from his contract had nothing to do with their playoff run, much like it has nothing to do with the draft, or free agency, or whatever made up excuse they will now give. They were never going to release him, and he will now have to wait until a coach is fired to get his chance, maybe even longer if Vegas doesn’t like whatever team that is, as all the vacant coaching spots have been filled.
 
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Playoffs are over and there's still not a peep from Vegas, and now you have teams out of the division filling vacancies. Vegas may very well just hold Cassidy hostage for the year.

Maybe they reinstate him? No, not actually joking here... perhaps they saw Torts as a short term thing to light a fire under butts, but actually value Cassidy as a tactician?

haha...

or maybe the go out and hire Babcock AND still keep Cassidy. That would be sooooo Vegas.
 
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I actually think he can do reasonably well here. He's a jerk of a person, maybe he has mellowed a bit in that regard, but that doesn't mean he can't coach.

A lot of young players in Detroit and Toronto developed especially well under him, he will probably help guys like Howard, Savoie, Dach, Samanski, Podkolzin, Hutson a lot.

His teams generally are 3-4 lines deep but that's because he's pretty good at building up players, a lot of guys go to a new level offensively under him. A guy like Hyman was a nothing prospect, Babcock developed him perfectly and he's done that with a ton of guys like that. I doubt if Hyman started in the Oilers development system it would have worked out the same way for him.

We need an alpha personality behind the bench who will tear into refs too.

Getting this team to defend is going to be his big challenge, but it would be hard to be worse than last year where Knoblauch basically got nothing from the group.
 
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It won’t. Casual fans have the memory of a goldfish. If the team wins it won’t matter one bit. Except here on hfoil where it will be endlessly lamented.
And how exactly is this team supposed to win? Our roster is worse than it was when we were going to cup finals and we are about to hire a coach that agents have already said they won’t want their clients playing for.

We think Edmonton was a hard sell before…
 
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And how exactly is this team supposed to win? Our roster is worse than it was when we were going to cup finals and we are about to hire a coach that agents have already said they won’t want their clients playing for.

We think Edmonton was a hard sell before…
Yeah for sure. The ‘winning’ part might be a problem. lol. But hey, you never know. Bowman could fluke his way into a couple of good adds … and I’ll never count out McDavid, Draisaitl and Bouchard. Plus … if I recall, and sorry if I’m wrong about this, you were one of the guys who went hard against acquiring Evander Kane. For reasons of ‘character’ and ‘being a bad person’, similar to the questions people are having with Bowman. Many posters here threatened to turn in their fan card if the Oilers signed Kane. What happened there? Kane showed up and for a couple of years he was huge for this club. Recall his playoff hat trick against the Flames … one of the best moments in recent Oiler history. Sometimes guys learn from their past mistakes and show up and make a positive impact. I’m not a fan of Babcock and to be perfectly clear he wouldn’t be my choice. But it’s not impossible to foresee a scenario where he could show up, lessons learned, and be a force for improvement.
 
And how exactly is this team supposed to win? Our roster is worse than it was when we were going to cup finals and we are about to hire a coach that agents have already said they won’t want their clients playing for.

We think Edmonton was a hard sell before…

Babcock got 100+ point seasons out of those Leafs teams, with a rested Oiler group this time around we probably should return to that range.

UFAs are not the be all, end all, this team has signed in the last 10 years 1 whopping UFA who was worth it (Hyman, who Babcock developed) alongside several terrible to poor ones (Lucic, Campbell, Skinner + Arvidsson, Henrique) that we regretted.

It's much more important that the younger wave of players here ... that being Podkolzin, Savoie, Howard, Samanski, Dach, Hutson ... that these players become useful players that improve from where they are now.

In Babcock's defence, he's really good at getting young players like this to develop and blossom. Case in point, Hyman, Connor Brown, and Kapanen all broke out under Babcock in Toronto, who knows where they'd be if they were stuck here in Edmonton, might have gone the same way as Yamamoto and Holloway who never got a real chance.

I would be more concerned with the development of these young players, not UFAs in a mediocre UFA class that are going to want sky high salaries on an Oiler team that doesn't have much cap room.
 
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He wanted him so no.
I'm sorry, I just don't think McDavid giving his okay means a damn thing when he's never said no, including giving a thumbs up to acquiring Brandon Manning, aka the guy that cost McDavid the Calder trophy.

McDavid wants to win. Hiring a mediocre coach with a ton of baggage isn't going to push this team in the direction it wants to go. After all, we went through this exact scenario with Stan Bowman and he sure as hell isn't guiding this team anywhere good.
 

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