Maple Leafs getting short shift with Babcock
This is all new to Mike Babcock.
He’s been a coach for most of his adult life, stood on the bench of teams that won a Stanley Cup and two Olympic golds, only missed the playoffs once in 12 previous seasons in the National Hockey League.
And through all that, at age 52, he had never done what he did on Tuesday morning — gather an NHL team with one win in its first eight games and blow the whistle on a bag skate. The day after a listless 4-3 home loss to the Arizona Coyotes, a 55-minute practice came complete with heart-pounding dosages of line-to-line sprints to open and close the proceedings.
After it was over Joffrey Lupul, the veteran forward still catching his breath in the dressing room, was informed by a member of the team’s sports-science department that he’d reached a new personal record for in-practice heart rate — some 209 beats per minute at the height of the sweat-fest. “That’s high for me,” Lupul said. For Babcock, this all amounts to a career low.
As he put his new club through its paces Tuesday, only the Columbus Blue Jackets were possessed of fewer than Toronto’s four points in the standings. Eight games into a season, Babcock has never before coached a team that amounted to less.
And if there have been a handful of games this season after which the coach could spin the storyline positively — if there’ve been games in which the credible Maple Leafs were simply undone by their poor goaltender or, on two occasions, Montreal’s peerless one — the nature of the latest loss allowed for no such consolation.
“I really believe we have an unbelievable opportunity here to build a franchise worthy of the sweater it wears,” Babcock said. “And (Monday) night our work ethic, our preparation, our execution, our stick-toit-iveness wasn’t worthy of it. And that hurts when you get up in the morning.”
For all of that, Babcock’s presence in Toronto has wrought some statistical silver linings that bode well for the days to come. Toronto’s shots on goal differential, minus-4.3 last season, has been reversed to a plus-4.3. That’s the sign of a team that’s made a commitment to the virtues of puck possession over one-and-done rushes, a sign of a newly instilled discipline. It’s no small thing, even if it hasn’t yet added up to wins.
And here’s another micro-accomplishment worth noting. A year ago the average Maple Leaf spent 47.8 seconds on the ice during a typical shift, the second-longest duration in the league. This year, at Babcock’s urging, the Leafs are averaging 39.8 seconds a shift — the shortest in the league according to the Elias Sports Bureau. Again, it’s a small number stacked against a 1-5-2 record in the standings. But it speaks to the arrival of a structure that had heretofore been slapdash.
“Last year we were a little bit stagnant,” said James van Riemsdyk, the Toronto forward. “This year we’re skating a lot more, in more areas of the ice . . . Obviously when you’re skating more, you’re going to get tired quicker.”
Added Dion Phaneuf, the 30-yearold captain whose average shift has decreased from 50 seconds to 41this year: “I think you’ll see more of an effect the deeper into the season we go. I think that’s pretty obvious. If you cut back your shift, your recovery is quicker. When you feel fresher, you play better.”
Leaf fans have heard the same spiel before more than once, it’s worth noting. It was 31 years ago that another incoming Leafs coach, Dan Maloney, vowed to run his team through precisely timed portions. “I’d rather have fresh legs out there every 45 seconds than one guy for a minute and 15 seconds,” he said.
That year the Leafs won 20 games and finished dead last in a 21-team league. The problem, then and now, was less about the method of deployment than the lack of talent. And on the latter matter Babcock was not shy about sharing his opinion. All the small-picture tinkering and sports-science gadgetry in the world won’t turn a borderline pro into an owner of podiums.
“You try and get the best out of the hand you’re dealt,” Babcock said. “I always say to the players, ‘Don’t sit too close to the door. You want a stall in the middle of the room.’ . . . Over time there’s going to be changes in our lineup . . . That’s just the reality of our situation. We’re going to find out how hard guys want to compete.”
In a season in which the Leafs aren’t quickening pulses beyond their ranks, those hard truths are an easy sell to a fan base not holding its breath for quick success.