Admittedly I think it's partly me (futilely) being frustrated when people repeat falsehoods and they become fact here.
In the retelling of this story people make it sound as if Babcock found out before the last game of the season and told Modano he was a healthy scratch in the locker room and left him sitting there in his equipment.
The reality is much less salacious. Modano missed much of the season due to a wrist injury and he was honestly pretty bad in his tenure with the Wings. Babcock made him a healthy scratch when there was no longer enough games in the season for Modano to make 1,500.
I doubt that he specifically scratched Modano so he wouldn't make 1,500 games. He likely made Modano a scratch and didn't change his decision when he found out about the number of games. Also, I get that it's a round number but I don't think of 1,500 games as some major milestone like 1,000.
Babcock has done several things that are much worse and factually accurate.