He is coaching no differently than he has his entire tenure here. Babcock has always rewarded the guys who go in and play hard and practice hard. Especially when it comes to playing a veteran over a young player. Bertuzzi and Cleary have both worked and probably practiced harder than Tatar and that's why he isn't seeing the ice. And he obviously hasn't gotten the message by not playing much to start the year, so why not make a little statement in the media to get the fire lit under the guy.
I just wish the same would imply to Johan Franzen who is the laziest piece of **** on this team, but somehow puts up 30 goals a year. If the guy would quit floating half the time and dig in the corners he could be a 45 goal 75-80 point player, but ever since he got his pay day he just seems weighted down by his wallet or ego or something, but it pisses me off. And I don't think you can blame Babcock for not benching him because he is either going to score 2 goals or be invisible you just never know what player is on the ice.
But to say Babcock has lost it is completely untrue, he is, mostly, the same coach he was when he got here.
But then begs the question as to what level he is measuring people against their ability to compete and work hard. It used to be that the compete level was measured on the ice against opponents and their compete level. Now it seems like he is giving some people a pass because they are working, relative to their age/ability, hard...even though they are not getting the competitive results necessary.
This is where I think things are at a crossroads, for our Redwings. At what point do we have to consider that the physical attributes of a player have degraded enough that even their 110% effort is no longer able to compete against other teams' younger players who may only be competing at a 80-90% level. There also has to be some consideration for familiarity with players, and that the older players are simply more familiar at how to make themselves look good based on past history than younger players do.
Personally, I thought that time was last year and that our unwillingness to see that process through is going to have direct results on this year's success. We have already seen it even in one of our two wins and in our two losses where we are seemingly unable to stem the charge of another team that pushes their speed/effort to another level and we have already been at top level for the rest of the game, just trying to be competitive.
I just think that the reason we are inconsistent is because we are uncommitted to one specific direction, and then going with it. We live in two worlds, at this point, and Babs and Holland need to put their foot down and make a decision.
"I am a minus-4, but if you watch those goals, I don’t think there’s a breakdown on my side."
