The Toronto Maple Leafs coaching search is over. They have hired Mike Babcock. Babcock had spent the last 10 years with the Detroit Red Wings. He was under contract with the Red Wings until June 30th. The Maple Leafs will have to give the Red Wings one, third-round pick within the next three years as compensation.
Babcock is one of the best NHL coaches in the game. In his ten years with the Red Wings, he had a record of 458-223-105. That’s an unbelievable winning percentage of .649. Detroit never missed the playoffs and went to the Stanley Cup Finals twice. They won it in all in 2008. Since 2009, Detroit hasn’t made it past the second-round.
There was speculation Babcock was going to leave Detroit. The Red Wings gave him permission to talk to other teams once the Red Wings lost to Tampa Bay in game 7 of the first-round. He interviewed with San Jose and Buffalo. San Jose was an intriguing job. They are a team that have the talent to win now. The Buffalo Sabers seemed to be the front-runner because General Manager Tim Murray had worked with Babcock in Anaheim when he was head coach from 2002 to 2004. It seemed like it was a done deal, he would end up being the head coach of Buffalo.
The Toronto Maple Leafs President Brendan Shanahan offered Babcock a contract he couldn’t refuse. According to ESPN it’s an eight-year deal that will pay him at total of $50 million. That’s a salary of $6.25 million a year. It will make him the highest paid coach in the NHL. Shanahan played one year under Babcock in Detroit during the 2005-2006 season.
Shanahan has been looking for a coach for the Maple Leafs since he fired Peter Horachek on April 12th. Shanahan wanted an experienced coach who could handle the pressure of playing in Toronto, a city who loves their hockey team. They certainly have that with Mike Babcock.
It won’t be easy to turn around the Maple Leaf franchise. Since 2005 they have only made the playoffs once. That was in 2013. Boston knocked them out in 7 games in the first-round.
Toronto has talent he can work with to be a better hockey team. They have players who can shoot the puck in the back of the net in Phil Kessel and Joffrey Lupul. Dion Phaneuf can score as a defensemen. James Rimer has the talent be a great goaltender in the NHL. The Maple Leafs have the building blocks to become a better team. The area they struggled in this past season was the power play and the penalty kill. They were 26th in the league scoring on the man advantage. They only killed 80.5% of the penalties they took. Toronto will look to add players to make their power play more dangerous and a defenseman to help them kill power plays.
Babcock is the right man for the job. It will take time for Toronto to be a constiatant winner but under Babcock they should be in the playoffs year in and year out. Babcock will be under enormous pressure to bring a Stanley cup to Toronto. The last time they won it all was in 1967.
What do you think of Mike Babcock taking over as coach of the Maple Leafs?
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