News Article: Babcock to Toronto - for all the monies

[td_ice]

From hearing Johnston's and Tocchet's frustration, I don't think the players listen or respect them enough. That is one of the reasons I was hoping for Babcock, he is one of the few guys that they might heed.

And I am hoping from all the positive things I heard about Coach Hymes that we can keep him. But I doubt this group would listen to an ahl coach, despite his reputation for being a no nonsense coach.

But it really doesn't matter, I don't believe for one second the Pens were going to pay Babcock what he wants.

 

[mpp9]

I think Geno just played ****** down the stretch, but I thought he was engaged this year. Sid was dialed in when the games started to matter.

I think the PP is the litmus test for the coaching staff. And for Sid and Geno. If that doesn't get fixed, there's a problem. It doesn't need to be the best in the league. Sid and Geno aren't that great on the PP anyway. If they're still ****ing around passing on the perimeter halfway through the season, gotta make a change.

Just show these stubborn ****s video of better PP players. Take the kid gloves off and tell them how it is. They don't listen, they sit on the bench for the next shift on the PP.

 

[Joejosh999]

Re-posting the Dreger re-cap on Babcock

Quote:
Originally Posted by Nakawick View Post
http://www.tsn.ca/video/dreger-on-ba...-team-1.278202

There is a mention of Pittsburgh towards the end.

 

[Joejosh999]

Cliffs Notes:

Basically doubts Babs is going back to DET now that they've allowed him to shop around.
Thinks it will be min 5mil per yr.
Brought up St Loo or ANA (should they crash, unlikely) as possible destinations.
Says EDM or BUF or other desperate teams like PHl may throw huge bucks. Pegula is loaded.
However thinks Babs wants a Cup sooner rather than later.

As dark horse mentioned PGH, said (with a chuckle while the group shook their heads and smiled) that every time he talked to JR, JR insisted MJ was safe. Said that could change only if Burkle or Mario picked up the phone, but said he didn't know if that would happen.

 

[Nakawick]

When I think about coaching, I just think that Babcock would be able to get more mileage from our players than probably anyone else. That is no guarantee of cups of course, the player personnel needs to be the number one concern, but from a coaching standpoint, I don't think anyone is better at getting the most out of a team and being able to handle Sid and Geno than Babcock. That said, I am not down on Johnston either and would be OK giving him another season.

 

[NeedleInTheHay]

Garbage organization propped up by 2 superstars. He'll probably go to Philly now and turn that POS team around.

 

[Joejosh999]

The consensus was it would take 5 - 5.5mil per year at the low end.
Would we save that much if we fired our whole Gang of 9??

 

[GarrettC]

Translation: Babcock has zero interest in the Pens...... and can we blame him?

 

[Wings4Life]

Johnston is.a.junior coach through and through. He lost the room in late November and.will never get it back.

You guys would be an instant contender under Babs, take it from me. He did a lot with very little with some of our weaker rosters the last couple years.

 

[end]

2 gold medals with the most talented group of players in the sport. Like i said, you could basically put any 3 canadian coaches behind the bench and they still win gold.

2006.

 

[td_ice]

The consensus was it would take 5 - 5.5mil per year at the low end.
Would we save that much if we fired our whole Gang of 9??

From what I heard, those are guaranteed contracts. So no savings.

 

[Dipsy Doodle]

Why should we fire Johnston for Babcock? What is Babcock's pedigree? Isn't it fair to say Johnston didn't have a full roster? Not even just in the playoffs, but people are forgetting, we lost 2 key players for the season, at that point we were, what, 22-6-4? Then we lost Comeau for a month, Kunitz for a month, Hornqvist for a month, that's tough on any team, Babcock behind this bench wouldn't have been better if he had the same situation Johnston did this year, I don't think so anyways.

Because Babcock's regarded as the best coach in the world, has coached teams to 3 Finals and 1 Cup, and an Olympic gold. What has MJ won at the highest levels?

And injuries shminjuries, Bylsma coached this team to more success with injuries at least as bad as what the Pens faced this year. How about the dumb roster decisions MJ made that contributed to our cruddy season?

Adams for 70 games.
Scuderi never scratched.
Kunitz a top 6 and 1st PP lock.
Hornqvist shoehorned onto Malkin's line for way too long.

MJ contributed plenty to this year's **** show. Blaming injuries for all our shortcomings is overlooking several things we could have done better and didn't.

 

[systemsgo]

Team USA in 2014 wasn't that good. In 2010, under Ron Wilson, it competed with Team Canada and "won" silver. I always root for USA, but some of the roster choices were questionable IMO, Canada will always be loaded, they're so loaded, Martin St. Louis didn't even make the team, and he only made it because Stamkos was injured. Canada has the best players in the league, they leave great players at home, USA brings the best they have to offer and still don't hold a candle to Team Canada. I think any Canadian with knowledge of the game can coach that team to a Gold medal, sure there is no guarantee but they are just stacked with talent, and they'll have McDavid in 2018 if NHL players go

However with that said, I agree that Babcock is the better coach, he's obviously in higher demand and rightfully so, that was never my argument. People are criticizing the Penguins for keeping Mike Johnston, Johnston is not the problem and Babcock isn't the solution is all I'm trying to say.



I'm glad I'm not the only one who thinks this

Of course Team Canada is loaded, and you're choosing to use it as a slight against Babcock, when it can just as well be a positive. That he managed to get a whole team full of superstars to play and play well together, to buy into his system and perform. There's no guarantee that Canada would've won with any other coach, if so, look no further than their performance in Worlds, or USA's miracle on ice. In a single game elimination, anything can happen.

That said, I've always wanted Babcock, but we all knew after Morehouse announced both JR and MJ were staying that it wasn't likely to happen. I'm just rooting for anyone but Philly.

 

[plaidchuck]

Honestly without a sound front office I think babcock would be wasted anyways. Sure he could get a lot out of a crap roster but even then you can only do so much.

 

[mpp9]

Because Babcock's regarded as the best coach in the world, has coached teams to 3 Finals and 1 Cup, and an Olympic gold. What has MJ won at the highest levels?

And injuries shminjuries, Bylsma coached this team to more success with injuries at least as bad as what the Pens faced this year. How about the dumb roster decisions MJ made that contributed to our cruddy season?

Adams for 70 games.
Scuderi never scratched.
Kunitz a top 6 and 1st PP lock.
Hornqvist shoehorned onto Malkin's line for way too long.

MJ contributed plenty to this year's **** show. Blaming injuries for all our shortcomings is overlooking several things we could have done better and didn't.

Adams was just as bad last year. And he played every game. With a bigger role at ES.

Scuds was just as bad last year. He was never scratched.

Kunitz got worse. I highly doubt DB would have done any differently than MJ.

Hornqvist was tried on different lines during the regular season. And he ended up where he started, on Sid's RW.

You defended DB for years. I just don't get why you don't have the same patience with MJ.

 

[cheesedanish87]

Babcock is a good coach, but he is so overrated IMO.

Wings have won 3 playoff series since losing the cup to the pens, and its not like Babcock hasn't had talent to work with.

 

[mpp9]

Babcock is a good coach, but he is so overrated IMO.

Wings have won 3 playoff series since losing the cup to the pens, and its not like Babcock hasn't had talent to work with.

I think he'd do well with Sid and Geno. But I can understand ownership not seeing him as some kind of cure all. Certainly not worth paying MJ to sit on his ass in addition to what Babcock is demanding.

I still find it ridiculous people think MJ was at fault this season.

 

[Dipsy Doodle]

Adams was just as bad last year. And he played every game. With a bigger role at ES.

Scuds was just as bad last year. He was never scratched.

True.

Kunitz got worse. I highly doubt DB would have done any differently than MJ.

Bennett was actually getting scoring line time over Dupuis when he struggled in '13-'14. I think Kunitz would have seen more time on the 3rd a la Dupes that year.

Hornqvist was tried on different lines during the regular season. And he ended up where he started, on Sid's RW.

And stuck on one that didn't work for way too long, when goals and points were hard to come by. Where might we have finished if he realized it didn't work earlier?

You defended DB for years. I just don't get why you don't have the same patience with MJ.

Because we went from 5th to 19th in scoring in one year when injuries were no worse than the year before, and were bounced in 5 playoff games in the 1st round.

It's a results-based business, and MJ's results were the worst this team's seen since '06-'07. It's odd to me that people are looking at injuries as a catch-all excuse and ignoring that we managed to overcome similar injuries for like...the past 5 years.

Injuries are not new to this team. Not being able to score and finishing as an 8th seed is.

 

[cheesedanish87]

I think he'd do well with Sid and Geno. But I can understand ownership not seeing him as some kind of cure all. Certainly not worth paying MJ to sit on his ass in addition to what Babcock is demanding.

I still find it ridiculous people think MJ was at fault this season.

Babcock had a core of Datsyuk Zetterberg Lidstrom and he only got 1 cup out of it.


I agree with you on MJ, i think MJ did a good job this year with what he had to work with it.

 

[Wolf Without a Howl]

So what exactly would change, out of all the problems you listed, if Babcock was hired? The "Council of Nine" would still be in control of the front office.

They need top down changes, not bottom up changes.



3rd in the scoring race and 1st in PPG... I would hate to see what you would think of him if he would have finished outside the Top 10 and dropped below a point per game.

Was he at his very best? No, but I would hardly call his season "playing like a zero".

3rd in the scoring race, while dealing with the mumps (which apparently takes 3-4 weeks to really get over) and generally playing like ass for about 2 or 3 months. I don't know about anyone else, but that's still pretty impressive to me.

 

[eXile59]

So tired of people making the injury excuse for MJ. They don't want to hear it but that's part of the job and Bylsma did better with a worse roster last year.

Bottom line he made bad personnel choices and his system kills offense.

 

[mpp9]

Bennett was actually getting scoring line time over Dupuis when he struggled in '13-'14. I think Kunitz would have seen more time on the 3rd a la Dupes that year.

Bennett saw time in the top 6 this year as well. I would have liked to see him get more, but it's not like he was forcing the coach's hands either. He needs to stay healthy and get a bit stronger and faster. He's not very useful unless he's producing, and he didn't do much of that this year.

I think you're high if you think DB would have demoted Kunitz. Dupuis was never demoted to the 3rd line. Again, you're criticizing MJ for things that wouldn't have changed under the previous staff.

Because we went from 5th to 19th in scoring in one year when injuries were no worse than the year before, and were bounced in 5 playoff games in the 1st round.

I'm embracing the team's struggles offensively. It's going to finally force ownership and management to build a freaking team that doesn't have its offense run solely through 87 and 71. It should have happened years ago. And to DB's credit, he masked some of that with his ability to get players to buy in during the regular season.

I think they're closer to playing a style that wins playoff games than in the past with DB. Look at Sid. I liked where his game was at entering and during the playoffs than any time since 2010. We need Sid and Geno to play a 200 ft game in today's NHL.

I thought our core players had great seasons. Not their fault or the coaching staff's that the supporting cast wasn't there.

 

[roquay]

So tired of people making the injury excuse for MJ. They don't want to hear it but that's part of the job and Bylsma did better with a worse roster last year.

Bottom line he made bad personnel choices and his system kills offense.

Bylsma never went into a playoff series with 3 of our top 4 D out (if you include Pouliot it's 4 out of 6) and all PMD's which are pretty important to our side.

I doubt any team gets past the first round with those injuries.

 

[Dipsy Doodle]

Bennett saw time in the top 6 this year as well. I would have liked to see him get more, but it's not like he was forcing the coach's hands either. He needs to stay healthy and get a bit stronger and faster. He's not very useful unless he's producing, and he didn't do much of that this year.

I think you're high if you think DB would have demoted Kunitz. Dupuis was never demoted to the 3rd line. Again, you're criticizing MJ for things that wouldn't have changed under the previous staff.

Bennett was producing just fine before Malkin went down. He just never got the chance to play in the top 6 again.

And yes, Dupuis was demoted to the 3rd line when he was struggling that year before he got injured. That was what gave Bennett the opening.

I'm embracing the team's struggles offensively. It's going to finally force ownership and management to build a freaking team that doesn't have its offense run solely through 87 and 71. It should have happened years ago. And to DB's credit, he masked some of that with his ability to get players to buy in during the regular season.

I'm sure as hell not embracing it. I'm never going to embrace the team getting considerably worse at something, leading to terrible seeding and a "just happy to be here" playoff appearance.

Who knows if Sid, Geno, and Letang will all be as healthy at the same time as they were this season. We are always going to have health issues. If injuries are looked at as the main reason why we struggled this year, then how we fared this year is going to be the "new normal".

I think they're closer to playing a style that wins playoff games than in the past with DB. Look at Sid. I liked where his game was at entering and during the playoffs than any time since 2010. We need Sid and Geno to play a 200 ft game in today's NHL.

I don't think either of them were any better than last year on balance. Sid was obviously a lot better in the playoffs, but his wrist wasn't ****ed either. The opposite happened with Geno.

 

[mpp9]

I thought Malkin was great for most of the season, Sid was great when we needed him to be, Letang had the best season of his career and Fleury as well.

Give that team a better supporting cast, a healthy Maatta and a full year of DP and we're in business, IMO.

I just don't feel the doom and gloom around here.