This is the 5th season with Mike Babcock behind the bench of the Toronto Maple Leafs.
After a playoff series in which the Toronto Maple Leafs almost won and did in fact out hit the mighty Boston Bruins. The narratives are back and stronger than ever that the Toronto Maple Leafs have no grit.
Some players we have are not the type you are going to see throwing massive body checks game in and game out. But they are physical. They battle 200 pound men to hold on to the puck.
That is why Toronto usually has the puck for most of the game. As great as it would be to see Auston Matthews lay out Brad Marchand every time they played it’s not likely to happen. Even less likely would it be for Matthews to fight him, and you’d better believe the coach doesn’t want him to either.
Toronto Maple Leafs and Mike Babcock
Some people like to recreate history and they will talk about how tough the Red Wings were back when Babcock coached them because they played his way. Newsflash: Babcocks’ way of playing is probably the least physical of any coach in the 21st century. From 2005 to 2015, Detroit took the least amount of penalties every single season.
In Game 2 of a playoff series between the Boston Bruins and the Detroit Red Wings back in 2014. Red Wings defenseman Brendan Smith, nearly got into an altercation with Zdeno Chara, but decided against it. He had this to say after to the Detroit media, taken here from an article from the Morningsun.com.
"“I want to standup for myself and standup for my teammates and I will,” Smith said. “I’m not saying I won’t, but I’ll do it between the whistles. You don’t have to do stuff after the whistles. I’ve learned that in the last little bit.” “I did hit him once,” Smith said. “I think that’s where all the stuff started but he’s a big man, there’s different ways to go about it. We don’t want to be fighting. I don’t want to be fighting. I’d be (in the box) for too long and then you’re rolling only five D.”“We’ll protect ourselves but once it gets to be too long and punches are thrown we got to get out of there because we don’t need that,” Smith said. “We’re looking to win the series, winning a fight means nothing in the series.”"
Smith’s thinking here make’s a lot of sense, but what did Babcock think of it?
"“I thought he made a good decision,” Babcock said. “I don’t know why he’d go toe to toe with him.“The way I look at it, if you’re a really good speaker then you should find employment speaking,” Babcock continued. “If you’re a really good fighter you should find employment fighting. So you walk into the bar and there’s this beautiful young gal standing next to this 6-foot-9 monster who you know who makes his living fighting for a living and you’re the best pool player in the bar. Are you going to play pool or are you going to fight? Figure it out. It seems simple to me."
It’s pretty clear that Babcock isn’t really a coach who values fighting. His team had the least amount of fights out of every team that season, yet again.
Toronto’s ability to win in the playoffs will not have anything to do with fighting, or even how “gritty they are.” It will come down to their resiliency, and their willingness to play as one cohesive unit.
The point of all this isn’t to argue for or against fighting, or physical play. It is to show that the lack of grit everybody speaks of on Toronto, is a product of coaching style, not the players on the team. Babcock has long had the softest teams in the league, long before people started complaining that Kyle Dubas made things this way.
The Toronto Maple Leafs have some players playing very physical, it’s just not the way some people like it. Alexander Kerfoot is 4th in the league for hits taken per 60, Muzzin is 19th. Trevor Moore is 11th in the league for Hits per 60, with Kapanen at 31. Hyman is also due back soon and that is yet another physical player. (Stats from naturalstattrick.com).
Hyman, Kerfoot, Timashov, Kapanen, Johnsson, Muzzin, and even Travis Dermott, are all fairly physical players who actually know how to play hockey, extremely well at that. All of these players are playing less physical than they have under other coaches. Leafs have a lot more grit than you may think.
This is not another fire Babcock editorial, this is just to illustrate that this style of play, is not unique to the Toronto Maple Leafs. This is how Babcock coached teams play hockey. No more, no less.