I expect more than we've seen out of our top line(s)
I think everyone knows the skill is there, question is how much is that talent willing to work?
And the point I'm trying to make is Babcock's coaching style, especially with respect to ice time, works much better with teams where the talent difference between the lines is miniscule. And that's because he likes to keep ice time 5v5 even, where all four lines play similar minutes. It worked when the Leafs weren't very good and choosing to throw Bozak or Kadri or Holland out there didn't really matter much in the grand scheme of things. But now?
And I have no doubt his "my way or the highway", "defense only", even-line-minutes style of coaching would grate on a lot of players. How long do you think it would take for a 40 goal scorer to wonder why he bothers when he's going to get the same ice time as a guy who was playing in the European leagues last year and just barely made the team? Or less minutes than a guy who was a 40 goal scorer 10 years ago, but now can barely crack 50 points?
And that's not even factoring in that Babcock's accountability system is horribly out of whack, which is why we saw him repeatedly punish Marner and Nylander for infractions that Hyman, Marleau and Komarov got away with...
He's driving the creativity out of our scoring forwards with the way he's coaching. We all know they need to be better defensively, but what he's doing to drill that into them isn't working. And we know it isn't, because they go into every year with the same problems.