The babclock has expired

ACGM: Babcock is not a bad coach.

Also ACGM: Proceeds to give explanation of how Babcock is an outdated coach still living in the 90's and is thereby a bad coach.

Good one.

Well, just because his coaching style is outdated doesn't mean he's bad overall. I mean, he still won a lot of silverware before this era.

Funny he was coaching well when Lou was the G.M. They turned the team around pretty quickly.

Now he needs to go. hmmm.

The Islanders have no problem with that style of play. Run and gun works best when you have highly skilled players like the Leafs and Pens. They still have to play sound defense to win.

Babcock and Lou had a great working relationship. Lou supported the way Babs wanted to coach and he brought in the players for it.

One issue is no defence, another is no forecheck or urgency away from the puck. No speed either.

People repeat the same bits all over the place on social media: Babcock played a defensive style, Babcock wants a system where players wait for opponents to mess up, Babcock believed in an outdated style of play.

Not the case. It's the opposite. Babcock always preached an offensive style. He's the one who introduced the trademark North-South stretch pass system we used all these years, with Gardiner at QB. His "defensive system" had nothing conventional. He wanted players to put intense pressure along the boards to regain possession (read: puck chasing), by outnumbering the puck carrier, with the hope of generating fast counter-attacks. Instead of a more conservative, positional play.

We are the second worst defensive team in the league! If Babcock taught a defensive style, we would lose games 2-1. Not the case. The problem is, the defensive system was lacking in the first place, and he couldn't find a solution to it this year.

My guess: this run and gun system, with intense pressure on puck carriers, worked in the past because the lineup was more balanced. And we had players who had been trained with that system for years. They knew Gardiner would reach them with a pass if they cheated. Change the lineup, and new players are not used to that. They don't know where to go, make errors, which leads to silly looking goals.

Not going to change.. Toronto worst 11 to 20 players in NHL outside of Ottawa .. I mean awful on D and the talented prima Donna's on top lines are girlie girlies.. team needs an enima.. coach always first to go .. question is Nylander or Matthew's next or the GM?

That's a pretty solid assessment, I think. I was of the thinking that he handcuffed the strength of team in favour of defense play. But your take makes alot of sense . They look lost out there so much this year. It'll be interesting to see how they look witt with Keefe in place

Thanks! The change will help, I'm sure. Keefe is a mystery to me, but players needed someone new behind the bench.

My quibble with Babcock was that, ironically maybe, he was not conventional enough. Most coaches would cut their bench if trailing in the third period. They would play Matthews 20 minutes or more. They would have tried Barrie on the first PP if things didn't work for 10 games. I think I would have been happy with any "normal" NHL coach at this point.

teams have to pick an identity and stick with it.
If you are going to be a speed team and you want to add physicality to it, then you need to find those bigger faster players who can do that.
TOR really didn't do that. But that isn't the biggest issue here. The biggest issue is the defense sucks. They don't have a true #1 pair on the team, and that's where it starts.

So your saying they suck.

Well, I think Babcock wanted to play with north-south speed system when he first started to coach following the draft lottery in 2016/17, but after their 1st round loss to the Bruins in 2017/18, he decided to play a more physical system which didn't suit the players. He thought the issue was his players weren't tough enough, even though the real issue was that the defence wasn't good enough and therefore he never fixed it.

Yeah what I felt was that Babcock changed the team's identity even though the biggest issue was the defence that he never bothered fixing.

Given the way this Leafs team has played, they are a lottery team.

It's not babcock's job to fix the defense. That's on the GM. He's the guy who does the contracts. At the end of the day if GMJR brings in the wrong guys the coach gets scapegoated but it's the GM's fault.
Same is true with Babs. I'm sure there is more to that whole situation than what is public but there is also no doubt that they ran rug-shot all over Dubas.
But they get to rebuild that defense in the off season, 5 of them are FA. They can go from there.

You're right actually, I agree. If the Leafs were losing games by a score of 1-2 every night, then blame the coach for not able to generate any offence. However, they're giving up 5-6 goals a game, you have to think there's pressure on the GM for bringing in guys like Ceci and Barrie who can't play defence. Babcock has actually done a good job developing Rielly, Dermott and Holl to improve their defensive game.