Babcock method put to test

Coach’s tough-love approach with players will be measured by playoff success

Looking back on his fine career in a wide-ranging interview in the Detroit News the other day, Henrik Zetterberg, the recently retired Red Wings forward who won Conn Smythe Trophy as playoff MVP in 2008, spent time dissecting 10 years playing under Mike Babcock.

Their relationship, Zetterberg said, “has always been good.”

Which is not to say it’s always been easy.

“He is difficult,” Zetterberg said of Babcock, this while speaking to Detroit sportswriter Gregg Krupa. “He found a way to push me into an ‘I’m going to show you’ kind of thing. Not everyone, I think, can handle it.”

The gist of that quotation was recited to Babcock after Friday’s Maple Leafs practice. He was asked why he chooses that particular method to motivate players.

“I don’t think I do, actually,” Babcock said.

Perhaps there’s a disconnect, then, between the perceptions of Babcock’s players and Babcock’s perception of his own ways. When Zetterberg’s quote was repeated to longtime Leafs centreman Nazem Kadri, he smiled and nodded in recognition.

“I can definitely relate to that, for sure,” Kadri said. “Me and Babs have a pretty good relationship in terms of how things go. He’s able to push those buttons and me kind of respond and want to throw it in his face a little bit.” Ditto Morgan Rielly. “Yep, I think so,” Rielly said. “It’s definitely a ‘push and push back’ kind of relationship. And that’s what he likes. He likes a little bit of controversy or a little bit of confrontation.”

Babcock, though, framed his relationship with his players differently.

“What we try to be here is, we try to be non-combative,” Babcock said.

That’s his story and he’s sticking to it. Which is understandable.

Nobody wants to be seen as yesterday’s man clinging to yesterday’s methods. And Babcock is under considerable pressure this season to justify his enduring effectiveness. Yes, at age 55 he’s got two Olympic gold medals in his possession, and a Stanley Cup to his name. But he’s also been on the losing end of seven of his past eight post-season series, including two straight first-round exits in Toronto; while he’s been regularly helming playoff underdogs, the NHL is a league where playoff underdogs routinely thrive. Which is maybe why he eventually warmed to speaking about Zetterberg’s remembrances of another era.

“I remember (Zetterberg) being mad a few times,” Babcock finally acknowledged. “But I also remember Z putting his name on the Cup for the rest of his life.”

The way Babcock talks about his Detroit years you’d assume he’s the owner of a fist full of rings. Zetterberg, alas, spoke in his interview with Krupa about how the Red Wings “blew” their chance at a second straight Cup in 2009, when Detroit grabbed a 3-2 series lead in the Cup final against the Penguins, only to score a combined two goals in losses in Games 6 and 7. A critic might point out that Babcock has been on the scene more than once while a star-stacked offence failed to fill up the scoresheet at a big moment. (Canada 2, Latvia 1 in the Olympic quarterfinal in Sochi comes to mind, as does a 1-0 win over the United States in the Sochi semis. This recent stretch, in which Toronto became the first post-1967 NHL team to go scoreless in the opening two periods of five straight home games, doesn’t quite make the career list.)

For those knocks, nobody’s ignoring Babcock’s many strengths. Last year he led the Leafs to a franchise-record regular-season point total. His energy, players say, is infectious. And longtime members of the squad still marvel at his unfailing preparedness.

And Babcock, even if he’s in the fourth season of a mammoth eight-year contract worth $50 million U.S., knows his power only goes so far, which explains why, after a playoff falling out with Auston Matthews, he paid a peacemaking visit to Matthews’s Arizona family home that was, not by coincidence, followed shortly thereafter by a public announcement that Matthews would no longer skate with Zach Hyman as a linemate.

But if Babcock’s conservative philosophy meshed well with ex-GM Lou Lamoriello, it’s fair to say newly inserted GM Kyle Dubas sees the game through a different lens. In that vein it was Roman Polak — a longtime Babcock favourite who wasn’t brought back by Dubas in the off-season — who pointed out a potential disconnect between the kind of roster Dubas has compiled and Babcock’s style.

“Babs wants everybody to play the same way he wants it. If you’re me, I have a certain role on the team and it’s easier to do it,” Polak told reporters this week, visiting Toronto as a member of the Stars. “If you’re more a skill guy, you could have a problem with him.”

Considering Dubas has handed Babcock a team overwhelmingly populated with skill guys, what could go wrong? Polak’s gone, as is Babcock go-to Leo Komarov. And yet Babcock still leans on bygone crutches. Ron Hainsey, age 37, is playing topfour minutes on the blue line when there are younger, fleeter options behind him. Patrick Marleau, age 39, has played more minutes than any forward not named Mitch Marner despite sitting eighth on the team scoring chart. The young guys are the future and the present. Speedy skill is the way of the league. But Babcock loves nothing more than staying true to his old reliables, even if they’re not always reliable.

That’s his right, as is his adherence to an old-school Darwinian order. He breaks you down to see if you’re worthy of being built back up, never mind that the modern school of coaching advocates positive build-up without the bleep-you putdown. Marner got the treatment the previous couple of seasons, doing hard time on the fourth line. Kasperi Kapanen, third on the team with six goals yet somehow not included among eight forwards in the power-play rotation in Thursday’s 2-1 loss to the Stars, is getting it now. It’s in the eye of the beholder if Marner’s subsequent success has come because of Babcock’s grinding or in spite of it.

A decade ago, at least, Babcock was effective.

“Somehow, it worked,” Zetterberg told Krupa. And now? This team might be too talented to be held back by anything, let alone a coach. And the tough-love way has its advocates. Babcock, for his part, explained it this way: “We try to build relationships with our guys and we try to almost end up in a contract that you’re going to push them to be the best that they can be, but it’s their idea … Our job is to help them get better. But no one loves our players more than us, period.”

Playoff wins, not dressingroom love, are the metric on which Babcock will be judged soon enough. The man Zetterberg says pushes him into “I’ll-show-you” mode is under pressure to show the hockey world his voice is still resonant, his approach still valid. Babcock’s name is on the Cup forever, sure. But forever hanging one’s hat on 2008 is becoming more of a stretch.