Erin McKenzee
Though I’ve been pondering this question since before the season started and was pretty sure of my answer already, I wanted to wait until after Saturday’s game against Montreal to put it into words. Why? Because it was the latter half of a back-to-back that we, of course, lost.
Before the game, coach Mike Babcock flashed a new fashion look (a vest) to the cameras and claimed it was his way of bringing luck to the Toronto Maple Leafs. In reference to every single back-to-back they’ve had this season, he used the words “We haven’t exactly been sailing.”
No, Mike. You haven’t.
This preposterous decision to constantly play Freddie on the first night and Hutchinson (last year, Sparks) on the second is not only frustrating, it’s petty. Babcock said it himself – their back-to-back’s suck – so either he’s incredibly unintelligent, which I doubt he is, or he’s continuing to do this to anger upper management into answering to him. High school drama at its finest.
“So can you imagine if you lost Game 1 and then you went to Game 2 tired?” Babcock said this week, via Sportsnet. “I don’t know, the investment makes no sense to me whatsoever.”
What about losing Game 1, going into Game 2 tired, but having your starting goalie behind you? Wouldn’t that have been nice on Tuesday when the Leafs had already lost to Columbus with Freddie and then lost to Boston with Hutchinson?
I was once Team Babcock and held his Stanley Cup, Olympics golds, and world championship titles on a pedestal despite all the questionable decisions he made with the Toronto Maple Leafs. Now, none of that is enough to defend him and his reluctance to change anything about the way he coaches. It’s time for Babcock to go.