The Toronto Maple Leafs have a complicated relationship with their head coach.
Mike Babcock is one of the luckiest people in all of hockey. He started his tenure with the Maple Leafs with the team already having stockpiled a prospect pool that included William Nylander, Mitch Marner, Zach Hyman, Andreas Johnsson and Kasperi Kapanen, with Morgan Rielly already at the NHL level.
That summer, management then added first overall pick, Auston Matthews, to the fold and proceeded to sign John freaking Tavares two years later.
Any coach would kill to have such talent at his disposal. Any coach but Babcock, it seems. No, the bench boss has made no effort to play his superstar players the number of minutes that their talents dictate. And, as a result, the Leafs have failed to make it out of the first round of the playoffs under Babcock’s guidance, too.
That came to a head last season when Matthews and Tavares failed to crack the 20-minute mark and the Leafs got punted by Boston yet again. Then, Babcock took no responsibility for the blunder. Great.
Last week, Babcock spoke to The Hockey News’s Matt Larkin about a number of things. Namely, the topic of Matthews’ ice time arose, and Babcock had this to say about it.
Spoke to Leafs coach Mike Babcock today and broached the subject of Auston Matthews' ice time. Here is Babcock's assessment of it.:
— Matt Larkin (@MLarkinHockey) August 6, 2019
(Watch for a full interview with Matthews and Babcock in the next issue of The Hockey News) pic.twitter.com/NZBbcRzbk1
Honestly, he’s somewhat right. Neither Matthews nor Tavares should be burnt out by playing too much in a meaningless regular-season game. Save that energy for the playoffs. It worked wonders for the Toronto Raptors.
My mine gripe with this quote, though, is that Babcock’s seemingly logical plan of keeping Matthews under 20 minutes per night in the regular season almost certainly won’t change once the playoffs roll around. What has he done to prove me wrong here? Nothing.
Babcock does not deserve the benefit of the doubt when it comes to how he manages his players. He just doesn’t. And to assume that he’ll magically adjust to the situation when it arises – something he’s consistently failed to do as Leafs coach – would be illogical given the past three years of evidence to the contrary.
But who cares what I think about this. What Do You Think?
Do you trust Babcock to give his best players more ice time when the moments matter the most? Or do you think he’ll revert back to his usual ways? Give me your take in the comment section below to possibly be featured in the follow-up piece tomorrow!
Thanks for reading!