What exactly is Babcock doing that is impressing you.

[Rayban*]

Everybody seems so amazed that this team is even competitive in regular season games when its pretty much the same roster that was in the playoffs 2 years ago minus phil kessel.

Babcock has done absolutely nothing worth praise as of yet. He's the first to say its a results oriented business when he's winning, yet Carlyel would and always did have more wins at this point.

So what exactly has Babcock done with a 71 million dollar payroll that's impressive?

Click to read more...

 

[Bullseye]

Everybody seems so amazed that this team is even competitive in regular season games when its pretty much the same roster that was in the playoffs 2 years ago minus phil kessel.

Babcock has done absolutely nothing worth praise as of yet. He's the first on to say its a results oriented business when he's winning. Carlyel would, and always did have more wins at this point.

So what exactly has Babcock done with a 71 million dollar payroll that's impressive?

Lowered our GA by a ton and enabled a very mediocre team to be very competitive on a bunch of 1 goal games. He has also completely changed the compete culture of this team. Now start adding skill and watch what happens.

 

[613Leafer]

Franson is gone too, and like him or not, he was still playing a lot of minutes for us.

We're losing, yes. But our goals against and shots against are better than they've been in years, especially at even strength.

Our forward group is terrible. Add a couple of legitimate scoring forwards, and its not hard to picture this team winning quite a bit if they can maintain the team defence. Especially if we had consistent goaltending.

 

[Liminality]

Everybody seems so amazed that this team is even competitive in regular season games when its pretty much the same roster that was in the playoffs 2 years ago minus phil kessel.

Babcock has done absolutely nothing worth praise as of yet. He's the first on to say its a results oriented business when he's winning. Carlyel would, and always did have more wins at this point.

So what exactly has Babcock done with a 71 million dollar payroll that's impressive?

Simply even just watching the games you can tell that Babcock already had the Leafs playing a harder style of hockey to play against. Defensively this team is head and shoulders over past years and it's the same roster, that's got to do with coaching. Carlyle and before him Wilson would accept the roster they had and cheat defensively to try and accomplish more offensively. This time Babcock is trying to shape them into his style of play and make a more accountable team.

It's really night and day to me.

 

[johnny_rudeboy]

Franson is gone too, and like him or not, he was still playing a lot of minutes for us.

We're losing, yes. But our goals against and shots against are better than they've been in years, especially at even strength.

Our forward group is terrible. Add a couple of legitimate scoring forwards, and its not hard to picture this team winning quite a bit if they can maintain the team defence. Especially if we had consistent goaltending.

Not when we made the playoffs.

 

[airbus220]

You have to be impressed that Babcock was able to ruin both goalies in the first 2 months till injury. Who's next?

 

[613Leafer]

Not when we made the playoffs.

Unsustainable goaltending, offensive production from Kadri, and a small sample size got us into the playoffs in 2013.

We were 7th in team save % in 2013 with a tandem or Reimer/Scrivens (http://www.sportingcharts.com/nhl/stats/team-save-percentage/2012/), and Kadri put up 44 points in 48 games which he's never come close to matching.

We were dead last in the league for Corsi For %, dead last for Shots Against/60, etc (http://stats.hockeyanalysis.com/teamstats.php?disp=1&db=201213&sit=5v5&sort=SA60&sortdir=ASC).

So while Franson wasn't a big part of that team, that team really wasn't any good anyways. Just got lucky due to hot play from a few select players.

 

[HoweHullOrr]

Everybody seems so amazed that this team is even competitive in regular season games when its pretty much the same roster that was in the playoffs 2 years ago minus phil kessel.

Babcock has done absolutely nothing worth praise as of yet. He's the first on to say its a results oriented business when he's winning. Carlyel would, and always did have more wins at this point.

So what exactly has Babcock done with a 71 million dollar payroll that's impressive?

Lowered our GA by a ton and enabled a very mediocre team to be very competitive on a bunch of 1 goal games. He has also completely changed the compete culture of this team. Now start adding skill and watch what happens.

Franson is gone too, and like him or not, he was still playing a lot of minutes for us.

We're losing, yes. But our goals against and shots against are better than they've been in years, especially at even strength.

Our forward group is terrible. Add a couple of legitimate scoring forwards, and its not hard to picture this team winning quite a bit if they can maintain the team defence. Especially if we had consistent goaltending.

Those (i.e., goals against) are good points. But, I do understand the caution and desire to be objective. It is warranted. We do tend to get all gaga around here when short-term positive things manifest themselves. Maybe if we finish better than 25th we can say Babcock and his systems got the team to overachieve based on the talent level of the team? Just throwing the concept out there.

 

[Bluelines]

His hair is always perfect and I gotta say his cliches are world class.... when asked about one particular player his response is always "He's been our best player this year" ... so blowing sunshine up players @$$#$has to be considered one his strengths too...

 

[xxxx]

Everybody seems so amazed that this team is even competitive in regular season games when its pretty much the same roster that was in the playoffs 2 years ago minus phil kessel.

Babcock has done absolutely nothing worth praise as of yet. He's the first on to say its a results oriented business when he's winning. Carlyel would, and always did have more wins at this point.

So what exactly has Babcock done with a 71 million dollar payroll that's impressive?

Toronto is playing a totally different (and better) hockey, systematic, intelligent, players are playing with real work-ethic and passion, something I didn't see much before. How's that "absolutely nothing worth praise of" ??

 

[Duke16]

We'd be winning games if we could score, but I couldn't care less cause I want that top 5 pick

 

[666]

Simply even just watching the games you can tell that Babcock already had the Leafs playing a harder style of hockey to play against. Defensively this team is head and shoulders over past years and it's the same roster, that's got to do with coaching. Carlyle and before him Wilson would accept the roster they had and cheat defensively to try and accomplish more offensively. This time Babcock is trying to shape them into his style of play and make a more accountable team.

It's really night and day to me.

Babcock is allowed to lose. Carlye and Wilson had a mandate to win as many games as possible so their systems had serious holes but at least they won a bit more.

Babcock's mandate is to build a system and if that results in loses then it's ok. The strange part is that these systems don't take very long to learn as this team seems to have learned quickly. But in this case most of these players won't be here in the future yet they still build this system now and lose with it. It's pretty obvious that losing is the objective with the excuse of building a long lasting system but this team has learned the system already so it's really just losing that's important.

Anyone could do what Babcock is doing because management is ok with tanking.

 

[Macallan18]

His work with Gardiner. Instilled confidence and salvaged a great asset.

 

[johnny_rudeboy]

Unsustainable goaltending, offensive production from Kadri, and a small sample size got us into the playoffs in 2013.

We were 7th in team save % in 2013 with a tandem or Reimer/Scrivens (http://www.sportingcharts.com/nhl/stats/team-save-percentage/2012/), and Kadri put up 44 points in 48 games which he's never come close to matching.

We were dead last in the league for Corsi For %, dead last for Shots Against/60, etc (http://stats.hockeyanalysis.com/teamstats.php?disp=1&db=201213&sit=5v5&sort=SA60&sortdir=ASC).

So while Franson wasn't a big part of that team, that team really wasn't any good anyways. Just got lucky due to hot play from a few select players.

Agreed.

 

[TheProspector]

The same team? You seem to forget about Franson, as well as one of the best lines in hockey that year: Kulemin, MacArthur, and Grabovski. Oh, and now that Kessel guy, too.

Last year: 3.13 GA/G. This year: 2.65. In fact, this year is the best GA/G since the 2002/2003 season.

Last year: 46.44% Corsi. This year: 49.33%.

But the most impressive statistic: high danger scoring chance differential. -175 last year, and +27 already this year.

Yeah, Babcock is a ****ing ninja. Especially with this horrible roster.

 

[saltming]

Those (i.e., goals against) are good points. But, I do understand the caution and desire to be objective. It is warranted. We do tend to get all gaga around here when short-term positive things manifest themselves. Maybe if we finish better than 25th we can say Babcock and his systems got the team to overachieve based on the talent level of the team? Just throwing the concept out there.

Imo opinion it's not even about the wins it's how they are playing. Like the old saying 'it's not weather you win or lose, it's how you play the game'.
Last year(s) teams laughed at us. We were the easiest team to play against. This year we are hard to play against. Well structured and heavy team. We compete hard every shift.
For now, until we start bringing in the talent, I'm happy with those changes and that's what Babcock is bringing.

 

[HamiltonNHL]

Knows how to handle the media.

 

[snizzbone*]

Babcock is allowed to lose. Carlye and Wilson had a mandate to win as many games as possible so their systems had serious holes but at least they won a bit more.

Babcock's mandate is to build a system and if that results in loses then it's ok. The strange part is that these systems don't take very long to learn as this team seems to have learned quickly. But in this case most of these players won't be here in the future yet they still build this system now and lose with it. It's pretty obvious that losing is the objective with the excuse of building a long lasting system but this team has learned the system already so it's really just losing that's important.

Anyone could do what Babcock is doing because management is ok with tanking.

I don't think management could tell Babcock to win and we'd win... our roster is not good.

Are you saying a rookie coach could come into Toronto and completely overhaul our teams system? I doubt that. Babcock's rep is what make people buy into it.

 

[deletethis]

Unsustainable goaltending, offensive production from Kadri, and a small sample size got us into the playoffs in 2013.

We were 7th in team save % in 2013 with a tandem or Reimer/Scrivens (http://www.sportingcharts.com/nhl/stats/team-save-percentage/2012/), and Kadri put up 44 points in 48 games which he's never come close to matching.

We were dead last in the league for Corsi For %, dead last for Shots Against/60, etc (http://stats.hockeyanalysis.com/teamstats.php?disp=1&db=201213&sit=5v5&sort=SA60&sortdir=ASC).

So while Franson wasn't a big part of that team, that team really wasn't any good anyways. Just got lucky due to hot play from a few select players.

It may simply be a slip but I think it should be corrected that statistically speaking 48 games isn't a "small sample size". And especially in terms of the 2012-13 regular season where it's the full population of data and hence not even a sample of data.

In terms of stating that the underlying "advanced stats" and season specific "luck factors" reveal that the Leafs weren't actually very good that season, I wholeheartedly agree.

 

[mikebel111*]

Babcock is the best thing to happen to this organization in a long time.
Has the team playing good structure hockey and its amazing since the roster is terrible


Amazing signing!

 

[RoadWarrior]

Two words.

Structure and accountability.

The leafs haven't had anything like that since Pat Burns.

 

[Stats01]

Everybody seems so amazed that this team is even competitive in regular season games when its pretty much the same roster that was in the playoffs 2 years ago minus phil kessel.

Babcock has done absolutely nothing worth praise as of yet. He's the first to say its a results oriented business when he's winning, yet Carlyel would and always did have more wins at this point.

So what exactly has Babcock done with a 71 million dollar payroll that's impressive?

team structure is the most obvious one, goals against are down, we're not getting shellacked every game, he's provided a no nonsense approach to a team that completely gave up last year. This team lacks so much talent it's not even funny. Put some skill on this roster and some of these 1-0, 2-1 losses are wins. Strictly looking at the W-L obviously you're not going to see the whole picture and you clearly don't.

 

[i1]

Gardiner and Phaneuf look reborn out there; I was amazed to find there's not a single Gardiner thread on page one, usually this time of year is when the Trade Gardiner talk starts before he turns it on in the new year

 

[RyanOhReally]

An effective coaching scheme that has given us results 90% of the time. If this set of players is keeping games close by 1-2 points almost every game, imagine what will happen when we add the finishers (Nylander, Marner, Soshnikov, Kapanen)

 

[Mckay]

Some people treat real life NHL like a game of EA NHL and want to make a trade after every game if someone didn't score.