BABCOCK PART OF LEAFS’ UNDOING
Coach’s personnel decisions deserve critical review after disastrous series opener
Mike Babcock looks to Tomas Plekanec and sees what used to be and not what is.
It’s like opening a photo album from years gone by and rummaging through time. The pictures are near perfect. They look right and feel right.
Only the photos don’t change, nor do the memories, only the people in the photos grow a little older, a little slower, a little less capable.
A veteran NHL scout who knows his way around the league and back watched Plekanec in Game 1 of the first-round playoff series with the Boston Bruins. After watching him late in the season, he is rather stunned by the quality of play — or lack of play — the former Montreal Canadiens forward brings to the Maple Leafs lineup.
“He looks like he has checked out, emotionally,” the scout said. “It’s like he’s announced his retirement while still on the ice. I don’t know if the last few years of Montreal took the energy out of him or what, but he’s playing like he’s not really there. He’s not doing anything. This isn’t the Tomas Plekanec we’ve seen for years. I don’t know how they keep him in the lineup.”
Coaches, by nature, are stubborn. Babcock was born stubborn. There is one way to think and it is his way, and normally that way works. If Babcock believes in you, the way he believes in Plekanec, the way he believes in Leo Komarov, the way he believes in Roman Polak, the way he doesn’t believe in Dominic Moore, he will stick to his beliefs and be the world’s most loyal coach.
But here it is, one game gone and one game lost in the Stanley Cup playoff series with the impressive Boston Bruins, and Nazem Kadri suspended three games for his hit on Boston’s Tommy Wingels, and the series is suddenly as much about coaching determinations as it is about player performance. With the Leafs down a game and a significant player, you can’t have players taking up space in the lineup the way Plekanec and others took up space in Game 1 against the Bruins.
The list of Leafs who played to their level or above in Game 1: Zach Hyman. That was about it.
The list of Leafs who have more to give and need to contribute more in Game 2: Everybody but Kadri, who will sit and watch.
And if playoffs are so much about matchups, lines, defensive pairings, and how you manipulate your lineup, then the very expensive Babcock needs to live up to his reputation in Game 2. His players need to play better. The coach needs to be better, also.
Babcock admitted to missing out on the first Boston goal, which was offside, but said the Leafs didn’t have the proper replay in time to adequately challenge the call. That’s one goal they might have had back.
The second goal came after Babcock went too long with Ron Hainsey on the penalty kill. Hainsey couldn’t clear the puck 100 seconds into his shift. Within seconds of the miscue, David Backes made it 2-1.
The third goal came with Babcock employing the Plekanec line against the best line in hockey, and a few seconds after the puck was dropped, Boston led 3-1. Babcock blamed the fourth line for the goal against. He could have blamed himself.
The third goal completely changed the game. Three goals against, direct and indirect, came off coaching determinations. That’s how tight playoffs can be, even in a game that turned into a blowout. It was close and then it wasn’t.
And now a new Leafs lineup for Game 2 on Saturday night, a lineup we’ve never seen before.
Komarov, who you can argue shouldn’t be in the Leafs lineup at all, has been elevated from his place on the fourth line to take Hyman’s spot on the first line with Auston Matthews and William Nylander. Komarov’s role now: To bug Brad Marchand more than Marchand takes pleasure in bugging him.
Patrick Marleau moves to centre on the second line, which isn’t his favourite place to play, on a new unit that pairs Mitch Marner and Hyman together for the first time.
The third line — with the slumping Tyler Bozak and the slumping Connor Brown — stayed in place with James van Riemsdyk its only scoring threat. Bozak has one goal in 18 games. Brown has one goal in 20 games.
Take out Kadri’s 30 goals and the Leafs lineup looks all the more thin when good players aren’t producing.
And now the fourth line, which should have Moore at centre, who brings more game than Plekanec, with speedy wingers Kasperi Kapanen and Andreas Johnsson, who won’t be fourth liners for long. Johnsson, benched for Game 1, wound up working the power play in Kadri’s normal place at Friday’s practice.
The changes have been made. For now. The changes Babcock wants. This is likely the lineup he begins with Saturday night. Whether he finishes with it is anyone’s guess, but based on history, odds are he will.
“What I’m looking at is we’ve got an opportunity to play tomorrow,” the coach said. “And it’s our opportunity to play in the playoffs. Playoffs are real simple: If you win, you play again. If you don’t, you go home. We want to keep playing.”
He says that yet he keeps Plekanec in the lineup. Being stubborn, being certain, is a Babcock strength: Sometimes the coach can be party to his own undoing.
He’s not doing anything. This isn’t the Tomas Plekanec we’ve seen for years.
I don’t know how they keep him in the lineup.