You know what I said **** it, Babcock's ignorance fascinates me so much I just had to look up the TOI.
First 2 months of the season - Babcock's new recruit Par Lindholm - averaged 13:56 TOI through the first 2 months of the season (27 games)!!!
He was ahead of all of: Johnsson (LOL), Ennis, Leivo, and Gauthier. Like how the **** does this even happen? You can even take out Lindholm's SH TOI and he STILL played more minutes than those guys.
NHL.com - Stats
That TOI picture in general for the first 2 months of the season is just a complete ****ing mess. Hyman and Marleau averaged more TOI than Matthews (who only averaged 21 more seconds a game than Kadri).
Funny enough, after December 1st - Lindholm's TOI started to drop significantly and the whole TOI picture started leaning towards star players receiving more TOI. I have no doubt in my mind that management told Babcock his player deployment needs to change because it's utterly absurd.