Toronto Maple Leafs: Babcock Errs Big-Time

The Toronto Maple Leafs take on the San Jose Sharks tonight in San Jose.

Coming off a loss to the Flyers on Saturday, the Toronto Maple Leafs will look to avoid losing three straight. They’ll try and do it, apparently, despite Babock making a completely inexcusable and ridiculous error: Sitting out Josh Leivo.

While it’s nice that the horrifyingly dumb Mitch Marner on the fourth line experiment is over, this is ten times worse.  Josh Leivo got into a game for the first time all year on Saturday night and played his heart out.

Here is a guy who has earned his shot and not gotten it.  Then, when fate conspires to get him back into the lineup, he plays amazing and is not rewarded for it.

On Saturday, Josh Leivo had a 62.5% Corsi during 9:28 of 5v5 ice-time.  Anything over 55% is pretty much elite, and while it’s obviously just one game, it is impressive.

Leivo, while on the ice, helped the Leafs get six scoring chances in nine minutes.  He picked an assist. Leivo played almost 15 minutes, and the Leafs put 20 shot-attempts on net while he was on the ice.   He was arguably the team’s best player on the night.

His reward: a one-way trip back to the press-box.

Long Term Effects

This is not just one of the worst coaching decisions Mike Babcock has made, it’s one of the worst I’ve ever seen.  Especially when you consider it wouldn’t be much of a big deal to get one of the returning, formerly injured, players (JVR and Martin) to rest up for another game.

But what is worse is that Matt Martin hasn’t earned anything. He’s the Leafs worst player not named Roman, and he gets in the lineup despite being the NHL’s worst offensive player.  He doesn’t help the team, and he plays a position – enforcer – that most teams don’t use anymore (for the very good reason that it does nothing positive to have one on the roster).

Matt Martin should not be playing ahead of Josh Leivo.  But, based on the one game he played, neither should Hyman, Komarov, Brown or Marleau.

People talk all the time about morale, character, leadership etc. in the NHL. I can’t speak to playing in the NHL, but I have had lots of different jobs and leadership roles in my career, and I can say equivalently that nothing destroys work-place morale like not properly recognizing and rewarding hard work and success.

The Toronto fans and media may often times treat Mike Babcock like he’s infallible, but I can guarantee you that the players don’t think so. The players on this team know that Lievo earned his shot.  They know Carrick did too.

Next: Three Games of Polak Is More than Enough

That can’t be good for the dressing room.  It can’t be good to install the idea that you won’t be rewarded for your hard work in a young team.

Mike Babcock has coached over 1100 NHL games.  He should know better. The Toronto Maple Leafs need him to be better.