how many of those examples played under said coach for 200+ games though?
Babcock had a LOT of time with Smith and Kindl,it's impossible to really tell for sure what ultimate effect he had on them but the idea that a coach can have a positive impact on a player long term in a year or two but somehow can't have a negative one even if they play for him for half a decade is what's really "completely ridiculous" here
there's a difference between having an impact or being able to ruin a player though. Talking about Jurco as if a few months on the 4th line completely made him forget how to play a skilled game is not reasonable. Especially when he's still able to be that guy in the AHL, all the evidence point towards the problem being with Jurco himself. Babcock just chose to use Jurco in a role he could handle instead of one he couldn't (and the evidence that he couldn't be a top 6/PP player was obvious from his many chances there that he did nothing with).
Kindl wasn't even a very good AHLer so I see no evidence that coaching had a major impact on his NHL career. Smith was also always a low-IQ player. Babcock's coaching is likely one of few reasons these two were even functional NHLers for as long as they were.
I'm getting kinda tired of players like Jurco/Smith/Kindl/XO/etc. being used as ammunition against everyone and everything in the franchise. It's the GMs fault. It's the scouts' fault. It's the development pipeline's fault. It's the coach's fault.
Sometimes players just aren't good enough. It doesn't have to be the fault of anything.
McCarty just came out and said Babcock cost them the cup in 09.
Things like that are so easy to say. "We won in spite of him"... well, you won. Now you want to retroactively remove credit from the coach? LOL.
Extremely few teams repeat as cup winners and blaming Babcock is easy. If Lidstrom was (in a crazy alternate reality) accused of being a jerk, are you gonna say he's the reason you didn't win? Or did Babcock make him miss that final shot on goal? Was Datsyuk injured because of Babcock? Did Hossa underperform because of Babcock or because of injury that made him have surgery following that season?
This whole thing is proving that old mantra: when a team is good it's because of the players, when a team is bad it's because of the coach.