Tension in Hockeytown

The Detroit Red Wings have been a part of the NHL playoffs for a record 23 consecutive seasons.  During that span the franchise has celebrated thirteen division titles, six conference championships and Presidents’ Trophies, and raised four Stanley Cup banners to the rafters at “The Joe”.  Few teams, if any, have been as successful over the same period of time.  And with success comes expectation and the heavy head with the crown since 2005 has been head coach Mike Babcock.

Babcock took the Detroit job after finishing a losing season in Anaheim and really hasn’t looked back since, compiling a .654 winning percentage behind only living legend Scotty Bowman (.655) and the man he replaced Dave Lewis (.672).  During his time behind the Detroit bench the team has earned one Stanley Cup in 2007-08 and lost in Game 7 of the Finals the following year, but since then the Wings have not pushed passed the conference semi-finals.  Two of the last three years the playoff push has ended in Round One.  And with Babcock entering the final year of his contract the rumors have started to fly about his imminent departure.  GM Ken Holland, in a report today from Chris Peters of cbssports.com, indicates he doesn’t exactly hold high hopes of getting a new deal done with Babcock prior to the start of the season.  And since Babcock has refused to negotiate in-season to avoid the distraction, the conspiracy theories will really start to fly.

Well if Holland is as good with his head coach as he is in restocking the cupboards with talent, then this should be a no-brainer to keep Babcock.  The slide in recent years seems to have had more to do with fate than actual talent.  Two years ago the Red Wings lost more man games to injury than any other team in the NHL.  And it’s a crown they nearly defended last season falling behind only the Pittsburgh Penguins.  To make matters worse it seemed to be the key contributors that were felled with various ailments.  Henrik Zetterberg (45 games played), Pavel Datsyuk (45), Johan Franzen (54), Darren Helm (42), Daniel Cleary (52) and Stephen Weiss (26) are many of the front line players that Detroit had to live without for massive stretches of the season.  In some ways this helped the Wings determine where their young talent may be in terms of development.  Tomas Tatar and Gustav Nyquist both look like bonafide NHL stars, but by and large the injuries took a season of promise and turned it into trying to maintain the impressive playoff qualification streak.  In many ways this may have been Babcock’s best coaching job, even considering his two Olympic gold medals.

But these young players still have to pan out.  And considering the team has not made a conference finals in the last five seasons patience for future development of the kids may be running thin in the fan base.  This is a franchise that has come to expect Stanley Cup contention year in and year out.  So are the stars aging and the youth movement begun, or does this veteran roster need merely to get healthy to showcase their talent and have Babcock guide them to another deep playoff run?

If Holland can’t get a deal done with Babcock and he leaves, his seat should become hotter.  Not having a proven winner like Babcock behind the bench can prove problematic when trying to develop young talent at the next level.  Bringing the talent to the big club in the first place may also be an issue as the Wings have a total of ten players under contract through 2016-17 according to capgeek.com.  Included in those contracts are Weiss at $4.9 million, whom has turned injury prone and fallen off of his peak over the last two years, and maligned goaltender Jimmy Howard at $5.3 million through 2018-19.  If both players continue to provide more questions than answers, it could easily hamstring Holland during an important and inevitable transition away from his current core.

Regardless of when or how this transition takes place it would be bizarre and, frankly, a failure of Red Wings leadership to have that transition led by anyone other than Mike Babcock.  How the team finishes this season will go a long way to determining the direction Holland intends to take with the team and its leadership.  He is certainly going to be challenged more now than perhaps any other time during his tenure to execute for long term success both on and off the ice, or Babcock may not be where the leadership transition ends.