OT: Seventh defenseman - Jakub Kindl

[Lazlo Hollyfeld]

Well when you bench an offensive defenseman every time they make a mistake, that’s a pretty good way to neuter their game. So no I’m not surprised he did not become a good player and am aware he never put up that many points.

Again, I think that the way his development was handled was egregious. I thought that before all this Babcock stuff came out. Now it just makes more sense.

I remember at the time people being excited we'd have these twin towers in Ericsson and Kindl. The two were constantly compared because they came into the league around the same time and developed under similar circumstances.

Ericsson was a converted forward whose only advantage over Kindl was size, yet Ericsson managed to have a long career with the Wings. Kindl simply never put it together at the NHL level. It happens. When you can't outplay a converted forward taken 291st in the draft who came up at the same time, it's hard for me to believe it's because it's the fault of development.

 

[The Zetterberg Era]

Well when you bench an offensive defenseman every time they make a mistake, that’s a pretty good way to neuter their game. So no I’m not surprised he did not become a good player and am aware he never put up that many points.

Again, I think that the way his development was handled was egregious. I thought that before all this Babcock stuff came out. Now it just makes more sense.

It also for me was the precursor to a lot of the things he would do wrong with Smith. People like to point out we haven’t had a great D since Kronwall to Seider. Certainly that is laid at Holland a lot. I think coaching development on the back end was also a weakness during that period. They took promising guys and made very curious decisions.

I wish Kindl had been more, but he played a lot of years in the league and is actually better than most of this board will acknowledge. We certainly had higher hopes and he needed to do more on his end. But we gave him far from an ideal development in my opinion. He had lots of potential.

 

[Frk It]

I remember at the time people being excited we'd have these twin towers in Ericsson and Kindl. The two were constantly compared because they came into the league around the same time and developed under similar circumstances.

Ericsson was a converted forward whose only advantage over Kindl was size, yet Ericsson managed to have a long career with the Wings. Kindl simply never put it together at the NHL level. It happens. When you can't outplay a converted forward taken 291st in the draft who came up at the same time, it's hard for me to believe it's because it's the fault of development.

I've never seen a young player get benched for less than Kindl did and I have seen a lot of young players come through the league.

Ericson/Lashoff was Babock's kind of player, not sure what that proves necessarily.

 

[Air Budd Dwyer]

Yeah, it's strange that Yzerman and Shanahan went on to hire Babcock elsewhere after experiencing his coaching style first hand.

I know Holland wanted the shake up the country club atmosphere Dave Lewis had been running, so he hired Babcock. Plus, this is a direct quote “The worst practice players of all time are Yzerman, Robitaille, and me” -Darren McCarty lol. So maybe a 40 year old Yzerman just didn’t want Babs on his ass in training camp. And I know Babs wanted to motivate Shanahan as well coming in.

 

[Lazlo Hollyfeld]

I've never seen a young player get benched for less than Kindl did and I have seen a lot of young players come through the league.

Ericson/Lashoff was Babock's kind of player, not sure what that proves necessarily.

Overall I just don't put a lot of stock in development "ruining" a player. It can happen to certain degrees but is pretty rare. More often than not guys just don't make the adjustment to the NHL like everyone had hoped.

Kindl may not have been "Babcock's type of player" but he also wasn't any coaches type of player in his own end. Bad positionally and soft in the corners. If you're not producing offense to make that worth it, you're gonna sit. Kindl was Brendan Smith-lite.

 

[DoMakc]

Babcock didn't trust young players at all. I mean, maybe Jim NIll sucked so much that he didn't picked anybody worth a damn, but Babcock was not playing young players.Franzen had strories about him treating Nyquist like shit, despite Nyquist being the best of all. Babcock was in Cup-winning business, he was not giving a shit about development.

 

[jaster]

Here's Kindl's talents.

Hard shot. Could never get it through traffic though.
Good skater. Easily knocked off balance.
Good stickhandler. Couldn't do it in traffic and was often caught looking down at the puck.
Hard passer. Not very accurate though.

Absolutely zero defensive awareness. Very little actual offensive awareness (as shown by where his pass attempts usually landed.) Soft. Not a very hard worker.

The dude sucked. And if you need THIS much of a reminder, then have a look at this singular video that I think perfectly sums up his Red Wings career.

Oh he sucked, we all agree on that. Heck, I got accused more than once of being unfair to him and his game, so I'm no Kindl defender lol. I don't think there was anyway he could have reached a value equal to the hype he had on draft day. I just think it was mostly mental with him, and I think some of those mental deficiencies could have been helped along better by a coach who wasn't a narcissistic megolomaniac.

 

[OgeeOgelthorpe]

Oh he sucked, we all agree on that. Heck, I got accused more than once of being unfair to him and his game, so I'm no Kindl defender lol. I don't think there was anyway he could have reached a value equal to the hype he had on draft day. I just think it was mostly mental with him, and I think some of those mental deficiencies could have been helped along better by a coach who wasn't a narcissistic megolomaniac.

I wasn't aware of mental health issues with Kindl.

 

[jaster]

I wasn't aware of mental health issues with Kindl.

No, not mental health issues, just mental immaturity. Like, awareness of what he needed to work on, and thinking things would come easy, and whatever else was missing upstairs that you can kind of glean in the article he wrote about himself. Guys like him need more 1-on-1 coaching and development and he didn't get anything remotely close to that under Babcock. It's not Babcock's fault Kindl fizzled, but he also didn't help the situation, whereas other coaches may have.

 

[Lazlo Hollyfeld]

I wasn't aware of mental health issues with Kindl.

Oh any player who didn't live up to expectations from 2006 to 2015 is Babcock's fault now. It's why they all had wildly better careers when they were coached by Blashill or played for other teams.


BOILERPLATE DISCLAIMER: Babcock was and is an abusive a-hole egomaniac. This is not a defense of Babcock. Some players just don't develop into the NHL players everyone hoped.

 

[Frk It]

Oh any player who didn't live up to expectations from 2006 to 2015 is Babcock's fault now. It's why they all had wildly better careers when they were coached by Blashill or played for other teams.


BOILERPLATE DISCLAIMER: Babcock was and is an abusive a-hole egomaniac. This is not a defense of Babcock. Some players just don't develop into the NHL players everyone hoped.

Dude, relax.

 

[Frk It]

Oh he sucked, we all agree on that. Heck, I got accused more than once of being unfair to him and his game, so I'm no Kindl defender lol. I don't think there was anyway he could have reached a value equal to the hype he had on draft day. I just think it was mostly mental with him, and I think some of those mental deficiencies could have been helped along better by a coach who wasn't a narcissistic megolomaniac.

I mean again.. I can’t think of any young player I’ve seen that got benched for less. Like one minor mistake in the first period and they’re on the bench the rest of the game. You saw it with a lesser extent to Smith but Babs really seemed to want to make an example out of Kindl.

And no I don’t think every young player we have that failed, failed because of Babcock. I just think these were 1 or 2 cases where he really negatively impacted the player and didn’t give a shit. IMO you should have the exact opposite of an approach with young offensive defenseman as Babs had with Kindl and Smith. I think 90% of the players that didn’t succeed here would have probably failed with a different coach too.

 

[Lazlo Hollyfeld]

I mean again.. I can’t think of any young player I’ve seen that got benched for less. Like one minor mistake in the first period and they’re on the bench the rest of the game. You saw it with a lesser extent to Smith but Babs really seemed to want to make an example out of Kindl.

And no I don’t think every young player we have that failed, failed because of Babcock. I just think these were 1 or 2 cases where he really negatively impacted the player and didn’t give a shit. IMO you should have the exact opposite of an approach with young offensive defenseman as Babs had with Kindl and Smith. I think 90% of the players that didn’t succeed here would have probably failed with a different coach too.

I guess my more nuanced, less asshole-ish take would be I think coaching staff in the AHL and to a certain degree assistant coaches in the NHL have more to do with developing players than head coaches. And that head coaches get too much blame because then conversely wouldn't you have to credit them with developing the good players? Like did Jeff Blashill turn Bertuzzi into the player he became?

By the time they reach the NHL I think a lot of the die is cast. The biggest thing is adjusting to the jump in game speed and learning to be a professional who can play at a high level 82 times a year.

Kindl probably did have a short leash early on because the Wings were on the tail end of being very good. If he came onto the Wings from a few seasons ago I could definitely see him getting a longer leash. But I don't know that it would've changed anything.

(and to be clear my disclaimer about Babcock wasn't directed at you)

EDIT: I realize Bert isn't a great example because I think Blashill was his coach for part of his time in the AHL. lol. but the larger point still stands!

 

[Frk It]

I guess my more nuanced, less asshole-ish take would be I think coaching staff in the AHL and to a certain degree assistant coaches in the NHL have more to do with developing players than head coaches. And that head coaches get too much blame because then conversely wouldn't you have to credit them with developing the good players? Like did Jeff Blashill turn Bertuzzi into the player he became?

By the time they reach the NHL I think a lot of the die is cast. The biggest thing is adjusting to the jump in game speed and learning to be a professional who can play at a high level 82 times a year.

Kindl probably did have a short leash early on because the Wings were on the tail end of being very good. If he came onto the Wings from a few seasons ago I could definitely see him getting a longer leash. But I don't know that it would've changed anything.

(and to be clear my disclaimer about Babcock wasn't directed at you)

Yeah that's all fair, I just remember thinking it was really harsh/unfair back then. It may not have ended up making a difference.

The whole conversation on player development is and always has been interesting to me. As far as how much do team's actually impact the player's development, where does most development take place, how much should/shouldn't teams get credit for how guys develop. It's all a pretty hard thing to say.

I generally tend to agree with a lot of what you said as far as most players would fail regardless of their situation. The mindset on this site of there always being a reason a player fails (brought along too fast/slow for example) outside of that player just not being good enough is pretty annoying on here at times.

This particular case just always struck me as kind of extreme as far as that harshness/unfairness and then you hear some of how Babcock would try to make examples of guys and yeah... I think it is kind of related here. But Kindl may not have amounted anything either way, won't fight you on that.

 

[Lazlo Hollyfeld]

Yeah that's all fair, I just remember thinking it was really harsh/unfair back then. It may not have ended up making a difference.

The whole conversation on player development is and always has been interesting to me. As far as how much do team's actually impact the player's development, where does most development take place, how much should/shouldn't teams get credit for how guys develop. It's all a pretty hard thing to say.

I generally tend to agree with a lot of what you said as far as most players would fail regardless of their situation. The mindset on this site of there always being a reason a player fails (brought along too fast/slow for example) outside of that player just not being good enough is pretty annoying on here at times.

This particular case just always struck me as kind of extreme as far as that harshness/unfairness and then you hear some of how Babcock would try to make examples of guys and yeah... I think it is kind of related here. But Kindl may not have amounted anything either way, won't fight you on that.

I seem to remember Kindl not getting much PP time earlier in his career for an offensive dman. But when I looked at the stats he did after 2012. And before that there was Lidstrom, Kronwall, White, Rafalski, so it's easier to understand why he didn't.

Maybe I'm confusing him with another dman?

 

[Gniwder]

And he is one of the softest defensemen I have ever witnessed in his own zone.

Cholo was worse. It's why I hated him as soon as I watched him, even as many people here predicted top pair D, lol.

Cholo and Kindl both had low panic threshold because they were scared of physical contact. They should have taken up curling, neither are tough enough to be figure skaters much less hockey players.

Bowey panicked because at lower levels he was able to skate out of trouble and couldn't do that at the NHL level. He was forced to pass and wasn't really capable of processing that fast enough. He wasn't scared of contact, and despite his bad puck decisions, he'd probably still be in the league as a 6/7D if he was able to play within a system. He chases the puck around like a Mite. Super low hockey IQ.

 

[norrisnick]

Kindl was legit in games where a ton of people were hurt and he couldn't be benched. It's like he got out of his own head and just played. 3rd pairing spot duty with a quick hook and he was timid/scared. Of Babcock moreso than the opposition.

 

[lidstromiscool]

Glad he seems to be living a pretty good life. Thought he was really good in the 2013 playoffs vs Chicago

 

[Astyanax]

I always thought that Babcock did a really poor job of developing him as a player. I have never seeen a coach give a young player a shorter leash than what Babcock gave Kindl. He made one mistake and hew as on the bench the rest of the game. With everything that has come to light with Babcock lately, I definitely think he had an axe to grind with Kindl.. which is too bad.


Who would have succeeded being developed the way he was?

Kindl was always on a short leash, but I always felt what bowman did to kozlov was borderline comical over reaction.

 

[Electric Eric]

Real good read. Any idea when this was written? He mentions being 34, and he's 36 now, so I presume this is two years ago.

Good catch, I didn't notice that. Can't find a publish date, so I assume you're correct.

 

[jaster]

Good catch, I didn't notice that. Can't find a publish date, so I assume you're correct.

It drives me crazy when published online content doesn't have a date on it, so then I start trying to figure it out lol.

Funny thing, I saw two articles pop up in my feed this morning citing this Kindl piece as something he wrote just this past week, on the heels of the Babcock drama. Seems they are just assuming that, and are wrong. Journalism is going down the shitter these days! Harumph.

 

[Rzombo4 prez]

Exhibit A of how you can't teach aggressiveness and why guys like Cleveland get drafted.

Also, at higher levels of hockey more day-to-day individual coaching his done by assistants than head coaches. If you want to blame lack of development on coaches it should be the assistants unless your beef is utilization.

 

[SMP17]

I remember reading an article years ago about Babcock’s first year in Detroit. Yzerman and Shanahan were apparently super put off by Babcock’s approach, wanting to run the team too hard or something. I wish I could find the article.

If that was the case, and Yzerman even stuck within the org for a little, how was nothing said between him, Lids, Hank, Pav, Holland. Idk that whole dynamic seems truly puzzling.

 

[OgeeOgelthorpe]

I guess my more nuanced, less asshole-ish take would be I think coaching staff in the AHL and to a certain degree assistant coaches in the NHL have more to do with developing players than head coaches. And that head coaches get too much blame because then conversely wouldn't you have to credit them with developing the good players? Like did Jeff Blashill turn Bertuzzi into the player he became?

By the time they reach the NHL I think a lot of the die is cast. The biggest thing is adjusting to the jump in game speed and learning to be a professional who can play at a high level 82 times a year.

Kindl probably did have a short leash early on because the Wings were on the tail end of being very good. If he came onto the Wings from a few seasons ago I could definitely see him getting a longer leash. But I don't know that it would've changed anything.

(and to be clear my disclaimer about Babcock wasn't directed at you)

EDIT: I realize Bert isn't a great example because I think Blashill was his coach for part of his time in the AHL. lol. but the larger point still stands!

Assistant coaches at that time were Tom Renney and Bill Peters from 2012 to 2014. Then Jim Hiller and Tony Granato in 2014-15.

 

[Air Budd Dwyer]

If that was the case, and Yzerman even stuck within the org for a little, how was nothing said between him, Lids, Hank, Pav, Holland. Idk that whole dynamic seems truly puzzling.

I seem to remember in either 05-06 or 06-07, there were rumors of a mutiny or at least some discontent in the locker room towards Babs. I remember there being a thread about it on RWC back in the day.