The firing of Mike Babcock showed just how over hyped the Triple Gold winning coach was. Expect general managers to be more cautious of coaching hires in the future.
Mike Babcock getting fired by the Toronto Maples Leafs may have been breaking news yesterday, but it wasn’t necessarily surprising. The Maple Leafs, although injury-ridden, are under performing which is unacceptable in a big market with high expectations.
After a lot of regular-season success, but repeated lackluster showings where it counted in the playoffs, Babcock is making like Don Cherry and packing his bags.
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The question has already started swirling, what will Babcock’s legacy in Toronto be? He gave a long-suffering franchise hope, but couldn’t capitalize in the postseason. Even with all the attention surrounding Babcock, his Toronto teams suffered the same problems as Babcock’s previous squads.
In fact, Greg Wyshnski makes the case that Babcock is overrated in part due to Jean-Sebastien Giguere’s 2003 playoff heroics and coaching borderline All-Star teams most of his career.
Rumors keep swirling where Babcock will end up, but what does this mean for coaches in the future. Remember, Babcock came to Toronto with fanfare after being courted by teams like he was a star free agent player. Remember when we were all talking about the “Mike Babcock sweepstakes”?
Owners of the New Jersey Devils said they would pay for Babcock if he decided to come to the Garden State, saying that other teams were afraid to invest in their front office. Well, the Maple Leafs invested big in Babcock. Not only was he the highest paid NHL coach, but he had a monster eight-year contract.
While the role of a head coach may not diminish, the attention given to it might. Babcock was the free star free agent coach and was treated as such. In the end, he failed to deliver and that hurt his reputation. Great coaches may not be a dime a dozen, but they aren’t so rare a red carpet has been rolled out to wow the over.
Compare Mike Babock to Dan Bylsma. Byslma was thought of a great coach, obviously the byproduct of coaching a stacked Pittsburgh Penguins team. That even earned him enough of a reputation to earn the head coaching job for Team USA at the 2014 Winter Olympics.
After continued playoff disappointments with the Pittsburgh Penguins, and a less than spectacular tenure with the Buffalo Sabres, Byslmas’s reputation has diminished. He’s still a better than average coach, but he’s no Scotty Bowman.
ESPN’s Emily Kaplan had the best description for Babcock, calling him a “brand name” of hockey. The Maple Leafs didn’t buy into his vision of the team, but rather, they bought into his resume. His brand name status made his high in demand after he became a coaching free agent. All those factors inflated the price, and the problem was, nobody priced themselves out.
If any other coach wanted the salary and contract Babcock got in Toronto, team general managers would show him the door. For Babcock, they were willing to open their checkbooks.
Does that mean coaching salaries will go down? Not necessarily, but it’s hard to imagine having overpaid outliers like Babcock in the future. Don’t expect the reputation behind a head coach to over inflate their salary. Don’t expect teams to throw money at people like Babcock.
Good coaching is important. Good coaching is under-appreciated. You can’t win with good players and a bad coach. But Babcock shows that you can overpay and have buyer’s remorse. Don’t expect Babcock to be unemployed for long, but don’t expect any “Mike Babcock” sweepstakes this time around, or ever again.