Toronto Maple Leafs: Mike Babcock Is Here to Stay

Toronto Maple Leafs coach Mike Babcock is becoming increasingly unpopular, but he’s most likely here to stay.

There are very few franchises in the NHL with fans as passionate as those who support the Toronto Maple Leafs.

With that passion comes high expectations, and after last year’s first round playoff loss, calls to fire Babcock are getting louder and louder.

Babcock joined the Maple Leafs in 2015 after a successful 12-year career in the NHL. He was the bench boss for two seasons with the Mighty Ducks of Anaheim and then spent a decade with the Detroit Red Wings. He even captured the Stanley Cup with the Wings in 2009.

Mike Babcock and the Toronto Maple Leafs

Babcock signed a massive $50 million eight-year contract to become the Leafs 30th head coach in franchise history. Now, in his fifth year in Toronto, he is earning an average salary of $6.25 million. Too much by some fans’ standards.

After each Leafs loss, Twitter comes alive to find faults in the way that the team is coached. Babcock is critiqued for everything from the construction of the lines, the lack of in-game adjustments, to the time-on-ice he awards players.

A great deal of that condemnation comes from fans, but the media is also responsible for similar narratives. Some of the criticism is deserved, some is not.

Babcock is far from a perfect coach. He has proven to be predictable and stubborn, but that doesn’t mean he should lose his job. He happens to be quite proficient at what he does, a big reason why Toronto was willing to break the bank to bring him to town.

Babcock is an unapologetically intense individual, with a never-dying desire to win. He works hard and demands the same of his players. He holds them accountable for their play every night. He is also incredibly methodical.

Other coaches around the league have often been outspoken on the admiration for the Leafs coach. Ken Hitchcock, who got to know Babs from their time together at the Olympics has been very complimentary of his colleague. (Daniellemagazine.ca) He has said:

"“Mike doesn’t make snap decisions. I’ve never worked with a person who had the singular focus he has. He does nothing by accident. He has the ability to shut out the world and focus on the game. I’ve worked with a lot of people in my life and he’s one of the few who can watch every clip of every part of the game break it down and study it, absorb it and know what every player on the ice is doing. I’ve never seen a guy who can do that, who can process all that information.He puts a plan in focus to make his players better to make his teams better. And the players know, hard as it can be sometimes, that he’s there for them.”"

Fans may interpret Babcock’s consistency as a negative. His inflexibility and reluctance for change are often used to explain Toronto’s “consistent” first-round exits from the playoffs. It is yet another point of contention for Babcock’s detractors.

A great deal of the anger shown towards the coach is based on the expectations placed on the team itself. With the talent featured on the Leafs roster, many believe that they should have had far more postseason success in recent years.

The reality of the situation with the Toronto Maple Leafs is that even if Brendan Shanahan, Kyle Dubas, and Laurence Gilman all believed that Babcock should be relieved of his duties, it would be very difficult to find a better replacement.

Further, Babcock’s salary is an important consideration. He is owed big money for the remainder of this season and then the next three as well. That’s a total sum of $25 million that the team would still be on the hook to pay the coach even if he was terminated.

Fans should expect to see Babs chewing gum behind his players all season long. There is little chance that the organization decides to make a change, especially mid-year.