Mike Babcock

[InjuredChoker]

He'll be unemployed for about 12 seconds, and he'll coach another team to the Cup. He's a great coach who currently doesn't have much to work with.

Pretty much. He may not have made the best decisions this season but hasn't had too much to work with.

 

[Fugu]

It was also a completely different era of hockey when it came to team management, contracts and the like. Holland has obviously made some adjustments (not trading picks), but I'm not sure that if Scotty 2.0 came along as coach that he would make Holland a better GM today in the salary cap, post 04/05 lockout era.

They won a Cup after having to cut the payroll in half, and almost won two. Babs certainly admitted talking to him about roster matters, lines, etc., at least daily. Scotty left after 2008?



Is the cap why UFAs don't seem to like Detroit any longer?

 

[TatarTangle]

Here's the thing about that, who cares? Isn't the biggest issue that our bottom 6 isn't contributing AT ALL? So, if Tatar can create offense, why not use him on the 3rd line? Bertuzzi is just another blackhole there.

How do we fix the bottom 6 offensive problems if we don't try putting players there who CAN generate something offensively?

I agree but to be fair I don't think Datsyuk and Zetterberg could create offense with anyone in the bottom 6 so Babcock may as well have kept Tatar with the skilled players that he can do something with. Tatar looked faster, more physical, stronger on the puck, just better overall than Brunner but he gets a free pass, I'm guessing Zetterberg has a lot of say in that matter though.

Outside of calling up Sheanan, Nyquist and Tatar permanently there isn't a way to fix the bottom 6, it's past saving at this point. We're stuck with that mess.

And just in case anyone is wondering, Samuelsson is not going to be the Holy Grail that cures the problems in the bottom 6. He's only going to make it worse.

 

[Fugu]

He'll be unemployed for about 12 seconds, and he'll coach another team to the Cup. He's a great coach who currently doesn't have much to work with.

You know, that's fine. Let's not pretend that coaches don't get stale. Babcock believes this so much that he went to great lengths considering whether or not to extend with Detroit his last contract.

I think this was an issue the last couple of seasons for sure. This season he really doesn't have that much to work with, so it's tough to say it's just the coach. We have very high, and probably unrealistic, expectations as Detroit fans.

 

[SoupNazi]

Here's the thing about that, who cares? Isn't the biggest issue that our bottom 6 isn't contributing AT ALL? So, if Tatar can create offense, why not use him on the 3rd line? Bertuzzi is just another blackhole there.

How do we fix the bottom 6 offensive problems if we don't try putting players there who CAN generate something offensively?

We don't. Trying Tatar there to create offense was a good move, IMO. If he'd produced there nobody would be complaining.

 

[ArGarBarGar]

They won a Cup after having to cut the payroll in half, and almost won two. Babs certainly admitted talking to him about roster matters, lines, etc., at least daily. Scotty left after 2008?



Is the cap why UFAs don't seem to like Detroit any longer?

How many UFAs has Detroit gone after in the past three years? You have Suter and Parise, which I believe were going to Minnesota regardless, and then you have Wiz (who hates Detroit in general). Can't think of many big name guys who Detroit has had a chance to go after in recent years.

 

[SoupNazi]

And just in case anyone is wondering, Samuelsson is not going to be the Holy Grail that cures the problems in the bottom 6. He's only going to make it worse.

How do you know this with such certainty?

 

[TatarTangle]

How do you know this with such certainty?

Care to make it interesting? You saw him play before he got injured. He was three steps behind everyone. And it's a groin injury, he's a dinosaur, that can linger with him for the rest of the season.

 

[VM1138]

You can't really say UFA's don't like Detroit. Like ArGarBarGar noted, there haven't been many big name UFA's available the past few years. The CBA really killed off-season and trade excitement.

 

[vladdy16]

I don't see why Babcock is being disconnected from his roster. He's been here for YEARS. The idea that his coaching hasn't influenced the roster is crazy. Under his guidance the team has slowly been evolving from a niche powerhouse into an underdog.

I still think our old niche solves parity better than trying to be good at the underdog.

 

[Heaton]

I don't see why Babcock is being disconnected from his roster. He's been here for YEARS. The idea that his coaching hasn't influenced the roster is crazy. Under his guidance the team has slowly been evolving from a niche powerhouse into an underdog.

I still think our old niche solves parity better than trying to be good at the underdog.

Where does Holland come in with this? You think Babcock wants to have a team full of bottom 6 guys with no offensive skills? How could anyone have a successful year with what this team has?

If Babcock got his way, this team would have Brent Burns, Smith on the team last year, Ericsson on the team earlier than he was etc... Babcock doesn't get his way, not like Scotty did. It has to be extremely frustrating to coach a team that had some much talent when he got here and his GM slowly let it all slip away.

 

[BF3]

They won a Cup after having to cut the payroll in half, and almost won two. Babs certainly admitted talking to him about roster matters, lines, etc., at least daily. Scotty left after 2008?



Is the cap why UFAs don't seem to like Detroit any longer?

To a certain extent, yes, but my response was more in the context of Scotty the coach and Holland the GM combination and how it relates pre/post lockout.

In any case, I think a lot of our success from the late 90's through 2009 had to do with HÃ¥kan Andersson, but the other big part was bringing those guys in at the right time, which in todays NHL is 20, not 23.

 

[ricky0034]

Where does Holland come in with this? You think Babcock wants to have a team full of bottom 6 guys with no offensive skills? How could anyone have a successful year with what this team has?

If Babcock got his way, this team would have Brent Burns, Smith on the team last year, Ericsson on the team earlier than he was etc... Babcock doesn't get his way, not like Scotty did. It has to be extremely frustrating to coach a team that had some much talent when he got here and his GM slowly let it all slip away.

and Babcock is also the one who plays Cleary 16 minutes a night and is so quick to knock guys like Nyquist and Tatar down to lower lines after only a couple shifts

actions speak louder than words

 

[Winger98]

and Babcock is also the one who plays Cleary 16 minutes a night and is so quick to knock guys like Nyquist and Tatar down to lower lines after only a couple shifts

actions speak louder than words

Would you rather see Miller or Emmerton 16 minutes a night? I think anyone we put in Cleary's spot will show some clear shortcomings, but maybe we're just more willing to put up with it if it's a guy like Tatar and we can assume (hope) he'll get better.

 

[Syckle78]

Would you rather see Miller or Emmerton 16 minutes a night? I think anyone we put in Cleary's spot will show some clear shortcomings, but maybe we're just more willing to put up with it if it's a guy like Tatar and we can assume (hope) he'll get better.

That's exactly the point. I think everyone would be fine with growing pains from someone with potential. Its a lot easier to stomacthat than the bumblings and short comings of guys playing on their last legs.

 

[TatarTangle]

It's time to throw the "prospects" into the deep end and see if they can swim. The Wings are a playoff bubble team at best, anything else is delusional. I don't care about watching a losing hockey team so long as it's something new and has potential to at least be good. We know the [already reached] potential of Bertuzzi, Sammy, Cleary, [insertcrappyplayerhere].

Based on Helm not returning for quite some time:

Brunner - Zetterberg - Filppula
Nyquist - Datysuk - Tatar
Bertuzzi - Sheahan - Franzen
Tootoo - Emmerton - Abdelkader

Waive or trade the leftovers. Dinosaurs went extinct a long time ago.

 

[Heaton]

and Babcock is also the one who plays Cleary 16 minutes a night and is so quick to knock guys like Nyquist and Tatar down to lower lines after only a couple shifts

actions speak louder than words

The majority of NHL coaches do this, this isn't a unique situation. So, we get a coach who plays Tatar 16 minutes a night on the top 6, what do we have now? The same limited-skill team with no defense.

It's a moot point.

 

[vladdy16]

Where does Holland come in with this? You think Babcock wants to have a team full of bottom 6 guys with no offensive skills? How could anyone have a successful year with what this team has?

If Babcock got his way, this team would have Brent Burns, Smith on the team last year, Ericsson on the team earlier than he was etc... Babcock doesn't get his way, not like Scotty did. It has to be extremely frustrating to coach a team that had some much talent when he got here and his GM slowly let it all slip away.

Holland has done a terrible job managing the opposing philosophies within the organization the last few years, no doubt. This year has been written on the wall for a long time.

Yes, in a way I do think Babcock wants a team full of bottom 6 guys with no offensive skills. His ice time distribution record indicates as much. He uses his wingers to shut the game down defensively. Take shots from the perimeter and stay on your assignment. Suck the life out of the game, and leave the elite offensive players 13,40 and 55 to be the difference.

Players like Cleary, Samuelsson, Franzen, Bertuzzi, Abdelkader are on the team to play that role. They skate end to end well(or used to), are defensively responsible, and are almost never caught risking a creative play offensively. We used to have a swift thinking, mobile defensive corps to spur some life into our offense. That has deteriorated, resulting in even more conservative tactics, while the shots against total consistently increases and odd man rushes are no less frequent.

The team's talent pipeline has been consistent since before Babcock got here. He did not adjust to the fact that our advantage in talent evaluation was an ability to find undersized players with creative awareness. Mishandling Hudler, Nyquist and Tatar is a major disruption to the continuity in our system. Hudler was all Babcock, Nyquist and Tatar seem to be more a case of management being withholding, prefering skill players to play top line minutes in the AHL rather than playing with Aaron Downey and Darren McCarty for 6 minutes in the NHL.

We found a sweet spot early on, our team was lopsided with horizontal skill(Robert Lang), and Babcock's verticality and strictness with forwards balanced the team out. Though I don't know if I'd call it a success really, I think it's reasonable to say we could've been more successful between 06 and 09 than we were. Now we've oscillated to the other end of the spectrum, predictably mired in mediocrity.

Does anyone see a remaining compatibility between coach and management? I don't see Hakan Andersson all of sudden finding Shea Webers and Zach Parise's, and I don't see Babcock all of a sudden revolutionizing his offensive tactics. I honestly can't imagine how he would/will plan to generate productive offense without 13,40 and 55.

Who knows though. I feel stupid for pretending to care about tactics, when the state of the NHL is actually more depressing than the state of the Red Wings. Pretty soon drawing up a roster will be as simple as finding the guys with the best free throw percentage.

 

[Heaton]

Holland has done a terrible job managing the opposing philosophies within the organization the last few years, no doubt. This year has been written on the wall for a long time.

Yes, in a way I do think Babcock wants a team full of bottom 6 guys with no offensive skills. His ice time distribution record indicates as much. He uses his wingers to shut the game down defensively. Take shots from the perimeter and stay on your assignment. Suck the life out of the game, and leave the elite offensive players 13,40 and 55 to be the difference.

Players like Cleary, Samuelsson, Franzen, Bertuzzi, Abdelkader are on the team to play that role. They skate end to end well(or used to), are defensively responsible, and are almost never caught risking a creative play offensively. We used to have a swift thinking, mobile defensive corps to spur some life into our offense. That has deteriorated, resulting in even more conservative tactics, while the shots against total consistently increases and odd man rushes are no less frequent.

The team's talent pipeline has been consistent since before Babcock got here. He did not adjust to the fact that our advantage in talent evaluation was an ability to find undersized players with creative awareness. Mishandling Hudler, Nyquist and Tatar is a major disruption to the continuity in our system. Hudler was all Babcock, Nyquist and Tatar seem to be more a case of management being withholding, prefering skill players to play top line minutes in the AHL rather than playing with Aaron Downey and Darren McCarty for 6 minutes in the NHL.

We found a sweet spot early on, our team was lopsided with horizontal skill(Robert Lang), and Babcock's verticality and strictness with forwards balanced the team out. Now we've oscillated to the other end of the spectrum, predictably mired in mediocrity.

Does anyone see a remaining compatibility between coach and management? I don't see Hakan Andersson all of sudden finding Shea Webers and Zach Parise's, and I don't see Babcock all of a sudden revolutionizing his offensive tactics. I honestly can't imagine how he would/will plan to generate productive offense without 13,40 and 55.

Who knows though. I feel stupid for pretending to care about tactics, when the state of the NHL is actually more depressing than the state of the Red Wings. Pretty soon drawing up a roster will be as simple as finding the guys with the best free throw percentage.

This team hasn't lacked offense because Babcock didn't play Hudler in the top 6 or isn't playing Tatar or Nyquist in the top 6. This team lacks offense because the skill has gone by the wayside. Believing that Babcock would rather have a bunch of bottom 6 players over players who have actual skill is absurd, Babcock wants guys who can skate, be responsible and score goals. The fact that Babcock plays Cleary 16 minutes a night shows where this team is right now. Back in the day when this team had actual skill the top 9 were excellent - a good mix of young and older with a rock solid defensive core. Since then we've seen Z and Datsyuk get older, watch Rafalski, Lidstrom and Stuart leave with zero replacements.

Part of this is on our prospects and part of this is on our development. Abdelkader hasn't developed into anything, Emmerton hasn't developed into anything. We haven't really given Tatar or Nyquist a shot which is an issue - but the glut of forwards like Miller, Samuelsson, Bertuzzi, Cleary etc... shows a lack of vision. I'd bet my entire life savings that Babcock likes these guys, but wouldn't have any qualms getting rid of them for actual talent. We don't have the legs or the defense to play the way Babcock wants. And if this is what Babcock wants, why is Holland going along with it? He's been around for 4 cups (managed 3) - we're supposed to believe that he's just listening to whatever Babcock is saying here?

 

[Ricelund]

How many UFAs has Detroit gone after in the past three years? You have Suter and Parise, which I believe were going to Minnesota regardless, and then you have Wiz (who hates Detroit in general). Can't think of many big name guys who Detroit has had a chance to go after in recent years.

Off the top of my head, these are the UFAs Detroit has gone for and missed out on in the past couple years:

- Fleischmann
- Jovanovski
- Upshall
- Salo
- Suter
- Parise

 

[vladdy16]

This team hasn't lacked offense because Babcock didn't play Hudler in the top 6 or isn't playing Tatar or Nyquist in the top 6. This team lacks offense because the skill has gone by the wayside. Believing that Babcock would rather have a bunch of bottom 6 players over players who have actual skill is absurd, Babcock wants guys who can skate, be responsible and score goals. The fact that Babcock plays Cleary 16 minutes a night shows where this team is right now. Back in the day when this team had actual skill the top 9 were excellent - a good mix of young and older with a rock solid defensive core. Since then we've seen Z and Datsyuk get older, watch Rafalski, Lidstrom and Stuart leave with zero replacements.

Part of this is on our prospects and part of this is on our development. Abdelkader hasn't developed into anything, Emmerton hasn't developed into anything. We haven't really given Tatar or Nyquist a shot which is an issue - but the glut of forwards like Miller, Samuelsson, Bertuzzi, Cleary etc... shows a lack of vision. I'd bet my entire life savings that Babcock likes these guys, but wouldn't have any qualms getting rid of them for actual talent. We don't have the legs or the defense to play the way Babcock wants. And if this is what Babcock wants, why is Holland going along with it? He's been around for 4 cups (managed 3) - we're supposed to believe that he's just listening to whatever Babcock is saying here?

The problem is Babcock wants a guy who can skate, be responsible, and score goals... at every single spot. It just doesn't work like that, in the end you're going to get a watered down one dimensional roster bursting at the middle with mediocre players.

I can't help but read a contradiction in your post, saying that Holland has let talent go by the wayside, and that Babcock would let any of our mediocre rangey forwards go for skill, when Hudler is an example of precisely the opposite having happened, twice, more times if you include the details.

I don't have an answer for why a drastic step hasn't been taken in one direction or the other. I don't believe Holland is good at listening to Babcock and going along with him or vice versa. To me White,Quincy, Samuelsson, Cleary would make more sense as an immature joke against each other.

Hudler, Cervenka, Tatar would add skill to your top 12, and was just as feasible as what we have now instead. How defensively inept would they have to be in order to offset the positive gained by the fact that you now have more than 2 forwards on the whole team that can create offense? They wouldn't be pushing dynamic players like Helm and Tootoo off the roster, or reliable players like Filppula and Bert. They'd be replacing players that are decent at not getting scored on short term, but over time tilt the ice towards our goal through ineptitude.

Either way I'd like to see the team go in one direction or the other. Despite the mess they've made the last few years I still think it'd be more efficient to revert course and fill our niche, because I just don't see a way to get Babcock the talent he needs to be successful, and the intermediate isn't/was never going to work. I can understand feeling differently about that though, and like I say, either direction is better than the middle ground.

 

[Ricelund]

The problem is Babcock wants a guy who can skate, be responsible, and score goals... at every single spot. It just doesn't work like that, in the end you're going to get a watered down one dimensional roster bursting at the middle with mediocre players.

I can't help but read a contradiction in your post, saying that Holland has let talent go by the wayside, and that Babcock would let any of our mediocre rangey forwards go for skill, when Hudler is an example of precisely the opposite having happened, twice, more times if you include the details.

According to this tweet, Babcock wanted Hudler back. I'm assuming management didn't like the length nor the cap hit of his deal with Calgary. They probably wanted him making less annually than Franzen. I also think they like Samuelsson's size.

I think the idea that Babcock prefers players like Cleary, Eaves, Miller, etc. over real skilled top-six forwards is ridiculous.

 

[ArGarBarGar]

Off the top of my head, these are the UFAs Detroit has gone for and missed out on in the past couple years:

- Fleischmann
- Jovanovski
- Upshall
- Salo
- Suter
- Parise

Pretty weak list if you ask me.

 

[Winger98]

That's exactly the point. I think everyone would be fine with growing pains from someone with potential. Its a lot easier to stomacthat than the bumblings and short comings of guys playing on their last legs.

What I'm saying, though, is that I don't think this is a fault of Babcock's. He didn't go out and sign all of these vet forwards, and we know from the past that he's wanted kids like Smith up only to be overruled by management. And if this is what Babcock is given, he's got to put someone on the ice.

Complaining about Cleary getting 16 minutes a night, well, what else is Babcock going to do? It's who he's got, and he's got to go with what he has.

 

[vladdy16]

According to this tweet, Babcock wanted Hudler back. I'm assuming management didn't like the length nor the cap hit of his deal with Calgary. They probably wanted him making less annually than Franzen. I also think they like Samuelsson's size.

I think the idea that Babcock prefers players like Cleary, Eaves, Miller, etc. over real skilled top-six forwards is ridiculous.

That would blow my mind if true.

Hudler had far too much trouble getting a consistent role in the lineup for me to believe that.

I don't think the idea is that Babcock prefers guys like Cleary/Bertuzzi/Samuelsson in his top 6 as opposed to some hypothetical player, but that the way he has handled his top 9 over the years, in reality, has left us with a multitude of reliable under skilled guys and no skilled creative guys are left to be found.

The idea that management let a guy walk, that was ranked top 10 in his draft class, developed in their system and set records in their minor leagues, nearly won 2 stanley cups, developed into a secondary leader, is 1 of 2 players on the team in his age range, and is entering his prime,because of cap space they aren't even using, makes my brain hurt. There's no way.