Was Mike Babcock right all along about this Leafs core?

[Les LatterDaySkates]

Mike Babcock is a piece of shit. I can’t believe there was a time I would have killed to have him coach my team

Being a piece of shit and being a first rate NHL coach have precisely nothing to do with each other.

It takes pressure to make a diamond.

 

[Les LatterDaySkates]

I don't talk bad about Babcock incase he ever makes me hand over my phone.

See, that’s exactly why I do nothing with my phone but take pictures of my package.

 

[SI90]

Being a piece of shit and being a first rate NHL coach have precisely nothing to do with each other.

It takes pressure to make a diamond.

It does if he’s directly being a piece of shit to the team and it affects the team.

 

[sansabri]

yeah, but we also all knew so no need to give an asshole his flowers

 

[Les LatterDaySkates]

It does if he’s directly being a piece of shit to the team and it affects the team.

There are 110+ years of history of assholes, coaching championship teams.

Just because John Cooper or Mike Sullivan or Paul, Maurice know how to play with nice with the media doesn’t mean they can’t/don’t engage in psychological warfare with guys they can’t stand on their own team.

It’s only a problem if it doesn’t work

 

[viceroy]

Realistically very very few coaches have anything more than a tiny fraction of influence on game results.

I've heard this before and I strongly disagree. Having players run roughshod over coaching staff gives you the present Leafs situation. Also Berube isn't a tough coach.

I don't think the core was ever the issue, it's just not identifying how to use it imo. Their issue was depth...

Having 4 Offense first Forwards tie up near 50% of your Cap Space was the issue.

And you know an NHL team is just waiting for the heat to cool down before bringing him back into the NHL coaching fold.

I mean Quenneville's back and what he did was 10 times worse.

Other teams have had money tied up in their young stars before and found ways to add depth...

Once again 4 Offensive Forwards using half the Cap.

Marner pissed fans off by blocking a trade so he is naturally the one taking the heat this year. Matthews is the real choker on that team.

Blame?

See, that’s exactly why I do nothing with my phone but take pictures of my package.

Just make a picture of your junk your wallpaper to give fair warning for what's therein.

 

[FissionFire]

I've heard this before and I strongly disagree. Having players run roughshod over coaching staff gives you the present Leafs situation. Also Berube isn't a tough coach.

I should elaborate here by saying very few have a measurably positive influence on wins and losses. Coaches can have a huge negative impact and tank a team for sure, but very few can actually make a team outperform the sun of their parts. At the end of the day the players have to perform and the coach has to just not screw it up. I can’t really recall ever thinking after a Game 7 for example “wow that guy really coached the team to the win without him they’d have lost”.

 

[TageGod]

Blame?

View attachment 1039959



Just make a picture of your junk your wallpaper to give fair warning for what's therein.

Typically a player who is PPG in the playoffs shouldn't get blamed. Marner is not McDavid.

 

[AvroArrow]

Babock was 100% correct

His method of trying to get results was 100% wrong

He's still a piece of shit, regardless of whether or not he was right about the core

 

[Martin Skoula]

Yeah Mike “the powerplay is my enforcer” Babcock was too tough for the team when he sat Matt Martin in the playoffs over a personal locker room spat with him and played tin man Marleau like it was 2008. But hey he scowled at the camera and played up a totally real small town accent so it doesn’t matter that he ran a borderline Carlyle level pond hockey run and gun, he’s actually a tough guy that coaches a tough game!

 

[Schennanigans]

You don’t need to be an nhl coach to see how rotten this core is.

 

[Les LatterDaySkates]

Yeah Mike “the powerplay is my enforcer” Babcock was too tough for the team when he sat Matt Martin in the playoffs over a personal locker room spat with him and played tin man Marleau like it was 2008. But hey he scowled at the camera and played up a totally real small town accent so it doesn’t matter that he ran a borderline Carlyle level pond hockey run and gun, he’s actually a tough guy that coaches a tough game!

Playing Patrick Marleau at any stage of his career in the playoffs is a better idea than playing Matt Martin.

The only year Marleau and Martin played together in Toronto, Marleau had 27 goals, and Matt Martin had 12 points.

Of all the things to hold a grudge over, this ain’t it.

 

[Martin Skoula]

Playing Patrick Marleau at any stage of his career in the playoffs is a better idea than playing Matt Martin.

The only year Marleau and Martin played together in Toronto, Marleau had 27 goals, and Matt Martin had 12 points.

Of all the things to hold a grudge over, this ain’t it.

It’s not playing one or the other, those are unrelated points. He played a lot of soft players and sat one of our only gritty bottom 6ers because Martin reportedly stood up to him about doing his weird Babcock stuff to Marner. Marleau he just gifted offensive minutes even when he was clearly going through the motions for his iron man streak.

The narratives about Babcock are weird, he didn’t play a tough defensive system in Toronto, basically every defensive metric got better as soon as he left despite the goaltending getting worse as Andersen started breaking down. The offense was a run and gun pond hockey system by design that required wingers to float and wait for a stretch pass, the defense wasn’t allowed skating the puck out for some reason so they never moved as a 5 man unit and there was next to no forecheck pressure because the only time they’d dump and chase was when a stretch pass was mishandled.

Maybe he had some good impact on getting the team to take off ice prep seriously but the narrative that he was trying to get the team to play “the right way” on the ice and they refused is absurd unless “the right way” is shinny. I’m sure guys like Kadri and Hyman will credit him for helping their games but there’s just as many guys that became significantly better 200 foot players after he left.

 

[Pancakes]

You do not under any circumstances gotta hand it to Mike Babcock

 

[MoneyManny]

Why? Because one of the top 10 teams in the league lost a close 7 game series to a top 5 team?

The team isn't supposed to be just "top10" and you know it. The TML has as much talent as any other in hockey and they have underperformed in EVERY SINGLE postseason this core played in.

Name me 9 better teams than the Leafs on paper?

 

[Arthur Morgan]

He was mean to Mitchy, his hard ass methods were tuned out by the team and he was fired shortly after. He was too "tough" for this marshmallow soft core and basically got blackballed from the league as a result.

he wasnt just hard on Marner, he got him to make a list of the hardest workers to laziest players and then he went over the list in front of everyone when he was a rookie lol. little different situation than just being mean to him

 

[Arthur Morgan]

It is obvious Babcock was never the issue. And to be honest, he never really had a lot of time with this core to prove much. 2017 no one expected them to beat Washington but they put up a fight. 2018 they are young still and took Boston to 7 games. 2019 they can very well beat Boston by now, but still lost in 7 games. Maybe, just maybe, 2019 is the one year the Leafs under Babcock let it slip away. But the following 6 years they got older, wiser, more in their primes and STILL lost under different coaches. I don't know what the Leafs do post-2019 with Babcock, but it is hard to imagine they win only two playoff rounds in 6 years. Like him or not, and I liked him simply because he didn't pamper the players, he got results. Internationally and in the NHL. Very much a HHOF type of resume. But yeah, this team just can't get it done regardless of who is their coach.

there's alot to ignore after starting off like this. short memory it seems

 

[AlternateSideParking]

Babcock was the wrong guy. This issue is squarely on the players. Two Leaf GMs have paid a heavy price in assets to support them with veterans, while the organization upped the ante with analysts, experts, mentors and coaches, and it just doesn’t work.

Perception is reality. This core was initially perceived as soft, timid, and too flashy for playoff warfare and it rings true seven years later.