895
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- Jun 15, 2007
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The Capitals had to ask permission to talk to all 3 of those guys including Babcock. Toronto controls Babcock. They have a contract with him. Firing him doesnt means relieving him of duty. Not terminating his contract
I know you guys already saw my Babcock post, but here is another argument against him.
Babcock always said start on time, but Leafs seemed to start slow in many games, and apparently this was a problem when Babcock was in Detroit and Anaheim as well.
I'm not sure they'd be able to glean out much from that at this point. Between Patrick, MacLellan and Mahoney they've got the industry contacts to do exhaustive background work on each candidate. They've probably all heard the specifics for their most recent firings from talk in their travels and have plenty of anecdotes from over the years. Some of the Babcock stuff is verified and had been commented upon by Toronto management. But we don't know how they interviewed, whether management or ownership has pre-decided preferences for a particular candidate or whether money won't be the deciding factor. One thing with Gallant is I think he'd be the cheapest of the three and may also command the least term.Note that I havent seen mentioned here. Barry Trotz was an assistant coach to Babcock on the 2016 World Cup Team Canada program. It could be that as a result of that the Caps have more insight on Babcock
I don't think the league is holding it back. They haven't held back trades or word that Geoff Ward's interim tag is off. If they've got news I'd wager they're free to announce it. The league probably won't resume in early December as planned but that's little reason to wait. If for no other reason they should want their fresh voice in the ear of the players motivating and establishing relationships throughout the off-season. I don't see the wisdom in not having them clued into their acquisition strategy either. I can't think of any good reason to wait other than maybe avoiding a signing bonus payment or something and I'm not sure if that's even a thing for coaches anyway.
There may be second interviews needed, perhaps including ownership. Then there's the negotiation process, with both reps and former team. Still, this should clearly be their front-burner priority and needs to be resolved in the next two weeks prior to pivoting to the draft/trades/UFA.