How was this guy coach for so long?
I'd say he was a bit ahead of the curve in terms of the 2000s and prioritizing speed/skill over goonery. Went to the Finals in his first ever NHL season with a mediocre roster (and Giguere). Leveraged that into the Wings job with a stacked roster, leading to a Cup and great success to really establish reputation as a best in the business type, leveraged into Canada jobs where he did the impossible and won with a short tournament with like 15 Hall of Famers, leveraged into the Leafs job with their very talented young core, continued regular season winnings to buy enough time until act wore off. Look up and it's an 18 year NHL coaching tenure.
When someone has a lot of success, it's easy to ignore [that guy is just mad that he sucks and couldn't make the lineup], brush aside [all coaches do that] or rationalize [it's tough, but it leads to good results]. It also causes other players to stay quiet because they don't want to be viewed as problems/whiners themselves. I had no idea about his treatment of Johan Franzen until after the stuff with Marner. You can be both a bad person and good at your job, and unfortunately a lot of people will conflate that the former leads to the latter... but color me skeptical that whatever mind-games with players aside, that you need to berate arena staff in order to be a good hockey coach.
One would have thought after four years that he'd maybe self-reflect and change some of his behavior when he was hired by Columbus. Then the whole nonsense with the phone thing occurred, suggesting he probably just fundamentally doesn't give a f*ck and is who he is. Him being a supposed "advocate" for mental health makes all of it so much more strange. I can differentiate a player that toes the line and sometimes acts recklessly like Trouba that can be a good guy off the ice, but it's hard to imagine in someone like Babcock's case how he is able to reconcile his behavior and supposed advocacy in his mind.
