Support of Mike Babcock Says a Lot About Connor McDavid and Leon Draisaitl

So last week it came out that Mike Babcock is most likely going to be making his return to the NHL, as the Edmonton Oilers were keen on hiring him as their new head coach.

Since those reports about the Oilers' interest in him came out, there was an investigation looking into the 2023 allegations against him in Columbus, where he was hired as head coach in July, never even coached a game, and resigned before training camp after reports surfaced about him wanting to see photos on players' phones.

At the time, an investigation was set to be done, but it never actually happened because Babcock resigned, and when that happened, we all thought that would be the end of his NHL coaching career.

Welp, apparently not.

Now, with the investigation complete and the league and its players' association saying there is nothing legally stopping this, all signs point to Babcock being back in the NHL and coaching the Oilers.

For what we know, it sounds like players didn't really want to participate much in the investigation because of how long ago it was.

In my opinion, the investigation should have been done at the time regardless. It affected NHL players, and there should have been due diligence.

But here we are.

Mike Babcock is probably the most controversial or even hated coach of my lifetime in the NHL. There's no doubt he does win and he is a Stanley Cup champion, but he also hasn't won a playoff series since Nicklas Lidström retired in Detroit in 2012.

In Toronto, sure, he helped get the franchise pointed in the right direction once he took over the job there, but he was never able to win a playoff series with that core. However, based on what we know about those Maple Leafs teams, that may have not been entirely his fault.

That said, we also know about the controversies in Toronto, most significantly the Mitch Marner story involving the work ethic list and Babcock allegedly sharing it with the rest of the team when Marner was a rookie during the 2016-17 season.

It's just controversy after controversy with this guy.

And for someone who hasn't won anything significant in the NHL in almost 20 years, it's definitely questionable to make this hire.

I'm sure a lot of people are mad at the Oilers organization, owner Daryl Katz, general manager Stan Bowman, and CEO Jeff Jackson.

But I'm going to be honest.

Sure, you can get mad at them for having the idea, but I do think we need to start looking at the players who signed off on this. And I'm assuming there are three main ones: Connor McDavid, Leon Draisaitl, and Zach Hyman.

Specifically McDavid and Draisaitl.

I bring Hyman into it because he's a core piece of this team, and I'm sure he was able to give McDavid and Draisaitl some expectations of what Babcock is like, considering he played for him during those years in Toronto. But McDavid and Draisaitl are the most important players in that organization. They hold all the cards. If they don't want something to happen, it won't happen. If they want something to happen, the Oilers will try to appease those demands.

A lot of people in the hockey world are rightfully upset with McDavid and Draisaitl even while they understand they want to win at all costs.

You can tell the pressure to win is really starting to get to them now. With Carolina winning the Cup, almost every contender in the NHL this decade has won besides Dallas, Edmonton, and maybe Toronto if you even consider Toronto a contender.

McDavid, specifically, is going to be the one to hear a lot of the noise, especially after he didn't even win the gold medal for Team Canada at the Olympics after two straight losses in the Stanley Cup Final.

But I really have to question his ability to read the room on this one.

I even have to question his ability as a leader.

Because if we know anything about Mike Babcock, it's that it won't be the superstars like McDavid who are affected by his ethics and his methods. It's going to be the depth players, the young players, the older players, and the guys lower in the lineup who become Babcock's "victims," if you will.

We've heard the Johan Franzén stories. We've heard the Mike Modano stories. Daniel Winnik came out today and said Babcock was the only coach who made him hate hockey.

If McDavid wants to win, it's not just him who needs to play at an even better level, because it's hard to do that. He's going to need everyone around him to elevate their game too. And if Babcock is doing the same old stuff he's always done, I think he's going to make those players' lives worse.

I don't see any reason why he would change.

I really don't.

Because he hasn't this whole time.

He's an arrogant asshole who loves to talk about himself. I saw a clip of him talking in the third person recently, and it genuinely threw me off. I just think that's weird and strange.

And you know what they say about people who talk about themselves in the third person? "It's typically the biggest form of narcissism" out there.

Does that not scream Babcock?!?

People say he's one of the best X's and O's coaches in the league, if not one of the best ever. But if people hate you, they're not going to play hard for you.

I also don't think Edmonton is going to be able to land free agents as easily anymore simply because of the idea that they get to compete for a cup alongside Connor McDavid and Leon Draisaitl. I don't think players with no-trade clauses are going to be waiving them to go to Edmonton if Babcock is behind the bench.

As a leader, I have to look at McDavid differently now because he's essentially throwing the depth players on this roster to the wolves with Babcock.

And if another controversy comes out of this, I'm not putting it on Stan Bowman. I'm not putting it on Jeff Jackson. I'm not putting it on Daryl Katz.

I think I have to look at McDavid and Draisaitl.

Because if they didn't want this to happen, it wouldn't happen.

All the reports say they're fully supportive of it because they want to be pushed. But if you want to be pushed, go get John Tortorella.

We just saw what he did with Vegas. And while he might be an asshole too, there's a reason he keeps getting jobs: people like him. He might not be someone you want there long term, but if you're Connor McDavid and you've got two years left on your contract, you suck it up for a year, you play for Tortorella, and you let him do his thing.

Babcock?

I'm sorry, I just don't think McDavid and Leon read the room well on this one.

And I very, very, very much question whether this is going to be successful or not because I have a hard time seeing it being successful.

I hope I'm wrong, because I hope Connor McDavid gets a Stanley Cup.

I just kind of hope it's not with Mike Babcock behind that bench.