herb wrote:
Gotta give Shanahan credit. He landed the biggest free agent of the year, coach or player. The leaves now have one of the best coaches in the world. Lots of work to do, though.
What do you base this assessment on Herb?
Surely you aren't going to point to his Stanley Cup and 2 Olympic gold medals.....
Babcock is a good coach, no question, but he had most definitely
not done anything to earn that kind of recognition.
As a WHL coach he compiled a 288-251 record through 8 seasons with the Moose Jaw Warriors and Spokane Chiefs. He had 4 losing seasons and 4 winning seasons. He made a pair WHL Finals appearances but didn't win anything. He then made the jump to the AHL and took the reigns of the Might Ducks affiliate in Cincinnati for 2 seasons going 74-59, with a great first season and a .500 second season, where he exited in the first round and then lost in the qualifying round the following season.
He entered the NHL coaching ranks behind Anaheim's bench in 2002-03. The Ducks had a great season and a really solid playoff run to the finals on the back of Giguere. They lost to New Jersey in 7 games. The following season saw the departure of Oates and Kariya and the team suffered. They finished outside of the playoffs and management decided it was time to go into rebuild mode. Babcock declined an offer to remain with Anaheim after the NHL lockout and was named as head coach of Scotty Bowman's Red Wings soon after. The team was still a dynasty at that point and proceeded to win the Cup in his 3rd season. He followed that up with a Finals loss the next year and has not gone beyond the 2nd round since that year.
With the exception of the 2003-04 Ducks, Babcock's teams have always had a very strong leadership core. In Anaheim he had Kariya, Oates, and Thomas. In Detroit he started with Yzerman, Chelios, Lidstrom, Datsyuk, Zetterberg, Draper, and Shannahan. That group transitioned into Zetterberg, Lidstrom, Datsyuk, Kronwall, etc. His team has always had that kind of mix of players who know how to lead each other.
Now you see a Red Wings team that is starting to get long in the tooth, and they don't have a Zetterberg or Datsyuk ready to step up. I think the writing is on the wall for Detroit and their 24 year playoff streak will be a tough bar to meet in the next couple of seasons, regardless of who is coaching them. Babcock chooses a good time to move on, and going to a team like Toronto means that there will be no early expectations.....$50M is a huge sum to walk away from, but I won't be surprised if he see's it through for the front-loaded years and then opts to retire if things aren't panning out.
As for his Olympic gold medals, well I have a feeling that RD and Blobby could have replaced Babs and Hitch and coached teams like those to their gold medals by simply handing the reigns to Julien to enforce short shifts while the two of them duked it out in the tunnel.
I don't say all of this to smear the guy, just to point out that it is grossly over stating things to say he's the best there is.
Consider.....could Babcock gotten a team like Calgary to the 2nd round? Just sayin'.....
If he turns the leaves around then I'll begrudgingly change my tune.....but only "begrudgingly" because the leaves got turned around.