Babcock Fired

[blayze]

Everything's coming out on Babs suddenly now that he's lost his power. He's like the Weinstein of the NHL haha

I gotta say - that story about what he did to Mitch on the father/son trip - I don't blame Marner one bit for squeezing every nickel out of the organization now.

[Hoopo]

Babcock basically insisted Marner throw a teammate under the bus, despite Marner's attempts to call himself out instead and take one for the team. In my mind, Marner was doing the right thing and being a team player there, putting himself last, but Babcock apparently really, really wanted to rat him out to teammates for doing what he insisted Marner do?

I don't get what that accomplishes. Now your players don't trust you and think you're a jerk, congrats I guess. Probably would have sufficed for babcock to just tell guys he didn't think were working hard they weren't working hard enough. Instead he needlessly tries to sow discord between his players. And what did it get him? 2 playoff games?

[2014olympicgold]

Babcock basically insisted Marner throw a teammate under the bus, despite Marner's attempts to call himself out instead and take one for the team. In my mind, Marner was doing the right thing and being a team player there, putting himself last, but Babcock apparently really, really wanted to rat him out to teammates for doing what he insisted Marner do?

I don't get what that accomplishes. Now your players don't trust you and think you're a jerk, congrats I guess. Probably would have sufficed for babcock to just tell guys he didn't think were working hard they weren't working hard enough. Instead he needlessly tries to sow discord between his players. And what did it get him? 2 playoff games?

The idea is that a rookie is calling vets lazy. It's supposed to embarrass the vets because someone who's played 40games thinks you're lazy. Not saying it's right, but that's the idea. I'd imagine Babcock had already harped on the team (and it's probably pretty obvious who the "lazy" players were) so he's trying to get someone to also say the message. Like a, "See guys, I'm not the only one who thinks you need to play harder, look at this 19yr. If he sees it, you gotta know I'm not just yelling at you". If he's doing it then, he's prolly done it before. Just a trick he's done prolly a handful of times.

Again, not saying it's right.

[hockeyrobot]

No wonder Detroit never called up young rookies during his tenure

[Auston'sWilly]

Babcock confirmed the "Marner list" story to Dreger, saying that he apologized to Marner for that incident.

I can't help but wonder what Babs' assistant coaches have really thought about him over the years. That story with Marner is just so incredibly dumb. I know he apologized but this is almost worse than Randy Carlyle's sweaty head concussion revelation. What is it about Toronto that makes their coaches turn into morons ?

Godspeed to you, Mr. Keefe.

[hockeyrobot]

I know I shouldn't as he is sitting on millions and these stories are true so the truth should be out there.....but man now I feel bad for the guy.

[Auston'sWilly]

Not to make excuses or anything, because, for the record, what Babcock did is pure dirtbag. I repeat: Dirtbag.

But, what would be much worse is if a coach did this sort of thing to a kid without Marner's pedigree.
What if it had been Pierre Engvall? That kid can't say no.
No choice whatsoever but to comply or Babcock can bury him and nobody thinks twice about it.

Marner, with his golden boy status, at least had the option of saying no.
He chose not to, fine, and I'm not judging him. I probably would have done the same thing, not thinking Babcock would pull that kind of junior high school stunt.

But I wish he had sought out advice from his agent or parents. They might have, should have, advised him to stand firm and politely decline. What's Babs going to do ? Bench his 2nd best player ? I don't think so.

[ericdaoust]

Remember a couple months ago when Marner was a greedy daddy's boy?

[Auston'sWilly]

Remember a couple months ago when Marner was a greedy daddy's boy?

Yes, definitely. Not seeing the correlation between the two situations, though. Or do you mean because it made him dig in his heels for more coin ?

[Auston'sWilly]

This might be the biggest indictment of Mike Babcock as a person.

http://www.hockeydb.com/ihdb/stats/p...y.php?pid=3755

As crappy as the Spezza situation was, as crappy as the Marner situation was, scratching Modano multiple times to keep him from 1500 games is just a special kind of scum.

[hockeyrobot]

This might be the biggest indictment of Mike Babcock as a person.

http://www.hockeydb.com/ihdb/stats/p...y.php?pid=3755

As crappy as the Spezza situation was, as crappy as the Marner situation was, scratching Modano multiple times to keep him from 1500 games is just a special kind of scum.

Ya I heard that too....but now I finally had time to look into it. Commodore has made it sound like he benched Modano the final few games of the season but that's not the case.

Looking at his game log, Modano was out from Nov 26 to Feb 26 with an injury. It looks like he played (and logged ice time) in every game from the start of the year until Nov 26, and then from Feb 26 onward.

Myth - BUSTED

[ericdaoust]

Modano's game log for 2010-11: https://www.hockey-reference.com/pla...1/gamelog/2011

[rataylor22]

Ya I heard that too....but now I finally had time to look into it. Commodore has made it sound like he benched Modano the final few games of the season but that's not the case.

Looking at his game log, Modano was out from Nov 26 to Feb 26 with an injury. It looks like he played (and logged ice time) in every game from the start of the year until Nov 26, and then from Feb 26 onward.

Myth - BUSTED

Modano's game log for 2010-11: https://www.hockey-reference.com/pla...1/gamelog/2011

Well that's false. Taking Modano's game log and Detroit's schedule for the season (https://www.nhl.com/redwings/schedule/2011-04-01/ET), Modano was a healthy scratch in game 79 against the Minnesota Wild. The game recap (https://www.espn.com/nhl/recap/_/gameId/310403005) indicates Modano was in fact a healthy scratch, and Babcock confirmed he was aware of the games played by saying:

"We didn't bring him here to get 1,500 games," Babcock said. "We brought him to win the Cup. I think he'll be a first-ballot Hall of Famer no matter what."

Of note, at the time of this game Detroit would have had played 78 games and had 100 points, while Nashville would have played 79 games and had 94 points. The division wasn't technically clinched but it was essentially clinched. They were theoretically in a battle with San Jose for seeding, but Modano's 8 minutes probably wouldn't have impacted it either way.

[The Comish]

rataylor beat me to it, but I found an article from Oct of this year that mentioned Modano being benched by Babcock in one of the teams last 3 games of the regular season, depriving Modano of hitting 1500 gp (although I think 1499 is pretty cool to finish a great career at).

https://www.sportsnet.ca/hockey/nhl/...-mike-babcock/

From the article:

Modano ended up retiring with 1,499 regular-season games played but would’ve hit the 1,500-game mark were it not for Babcock making him a healthy scratch for a late-season game against the Minnesota Wild in 2011.

“I enjoyed Mike at the beginning of the year and then I got injured and kind of out of the system and fought my way back. It was a tough pill to swallow to miss one of the last three games to get 1,500. It’s a bitter pill but for some reason, some way that was his decision and you gotta live with it the rest of your life.”

[Auston'sWilly]

Thanks for the clarification, folks.
Still pretty scummy to keep him from 1500 games,even though it was 1 scratch instead of "multiple" as I incorrectly posted. Sorry for my error.