Toronto Maple Leafs: Hypocrisy, Mike Babcock and Learning From Mistakes

The Toronto Maple Leafs played their first game of the preseason last night.

Other than saying that I already enjoy Tyson Barrie on the team very much, I don’t really have much to say about the Toronto Maple Leafs first pre-season game – it’s probably better to pass no judgement than draw any conclusions from the first game in six months.

But what I really did enjoy, was Mike Babcock’s comments on Jason Spezza.

And also I enjoyed people’s reactions to them, which I thought were more or less hypocritical.

Mike Babcock

Old Corner Gas, as he’s sometimes known, is on the hot seat.  His team was so close to advancing last season that his coaching errors came under the microscope.

It is both accurate and fair to say that Babcock hurt the team last year, mostly from the deployment of players who were terrible in roles they shouldn’t ever have been in.

Ron Hainsey on the top pairing?

William Nylander with two guys scoring at fourth line rates?

Matthews (lack of) ice-time?

etc.

What really stood out, however, was Babcock’s reliance on Patrick Marleau.  Marleau’s game fell off a cliff last year.  Marleau hurt the team with his bad defense, and he scored at a lower per-minute rate than noted offensive black hole Frederick Gauthier.

This didn’t stop Babcock from deploying him like a top line forward all the way through the Leafs loss to Boston in the first round. It didn’t stop him from sending Marleau out as the extra man when they were down a goal.

We can all agree that Babcock’s tendency to overplay veteran players cost the Leafs and necessitated a lot of the changes Kyle Dubas made after that series.

So like the pro he is, Babcock seems to have learned his lesson.

Jason Spezza is potential hall of famer in the same vein as Marleau.  Spezza might not be paid as much, but he’s an ex-star at the end of his career.  (Stats from naturalstattrick.com).

The old Babcock might have started him on the first or second line.

But yesterday, Babcock said “Spezza is trying to figure out if he’s interested, and we’re doing the same.”

Oh my stars the coach is “throwing shade,” – get the smelling salts.

First, people should definitely not use that phrase. Unless your name is Linda and you are a 56 year old who works in HR and watches Housewives shows, you can’t use that phrase.

Secondly, the coach is just doing the opposite of what cost him in the playoffs last year.

Not for nothing, but Freddie Gauthier (who Babcock took the time to praise after yesterday’s game) had better 5v5 stats than either Spezza or Marleau last year.

That won’t stop the hypocrites from coming out in full force against him, but he spoke his mind and what he said was right:

The Toronto Maple Leafs are  a Cup Contender.  Just because you were great in 2005 doesn’t mean you’re making this team.  Babcock was right to question Spezza like he should have questioned Marleau.

Good for him.

There’s lots of things to question Babcock about, but he learned from his mistakes and we should all be so lucky.