kipwinger

I do want to add that I'm really not intending to knock Babcock here. I'm just stating my reasons for answering F. Michael's question the way I did. I maintain that Babs isn't the best coach for our team, but that still doesn't make him a bad coach, and it's not even the point I'm trying to make with this discussion. I think that Quenneville, Suter, and Hitch are better because they've got the accomplishments, and because there's no serious criticism of them that doesn't apply to Babs too. But again, he's clearly a very good coach, in pretty illustrious company.

For a minute there, it looked like both of those guys might have been able to do it too. Franzen started out really strong before his injury, and Weiss was going like gangbusters for a bit too. Dang.

I'm going to address two of your points... 1. "I firmly believe Quenneville is the beneficiary of the skill on his team, and he doesn't bring much to the table". Who's better, Toews, Kane, and Keith or Datsyuk, Zetterberg, and Lidstom? If you answer the latter, as I suspect you will, then your argument applies even more to Babcock then it does to Quenneville. Babcock's best teams were better than Quenneville's best teams, or Sutter's best teams. Yet they won more Cups with theirs. Babcock's 2005 roster was WAY better than anything Quenneville has ever coached. It's better than anything ANY of those guys have ever coached. He had four 80+ point players. And he lost in the 1st round. So don't act like he's been given some hard road and the rest of these guys had a cake walk based on their rosters. 2. "But I'm not willing to say Quenneville is one of the best coaches in the league based on four solid postseasons and ignore the rest of his career". The rest of his career where he had more wins and more playoff appearances than he had in Chicago? Quenneville's got over 700 wins. He had as many wins in St. Louis as he does in Chicago in roughly the same amount of games. Chicago is not an anomaly. It's more of the same. True Chicago's where he won his cups, but that's true of Babs and Detroit too. He didn't win anything until he had Dats, Z, and Lids to work with. In fact, he missed the playoffs 50% of the time he wasn't with the Wings. That's right, Babs missed the playoffs with a team that went to the finals the year before...just like Sutter.

Winning the Stanley Cup is the hardest thing to do in hockey (or sports for that matter). Quenneville and Sutter each have two. Quenneville also has the added bonus of having over 700 wins (only the third person to do so). Hitch has 700 wins and as many Cups as Babs. To be honest, I think win percentage and "first to 500" are less meaningful in this case for two reasons. Mclellan AND Boudreau will be faster to 500 than Babcock, and they both have a higher win percentages. Bylsma has a higher win percentage and just as many cups. Yet I think it would be misleading to suggest that any of them are better or worse than Babs based on those stats. Certainly it's a factor, but if you go down that rabbit hole you might not like where you end up. As I said, these are just my (partially informed) impressions. You could definitely figure out a way to factor in all the relevant information, and then plug each guy in. And that might totally change my mind. But needless to say, Babs is a very good coach. Easily top 5 in the league. But if someone asks me (and they did) "who's the best", I've got to give it to the guys with the hardware and longevity.

That's a pretty tenuous characterization for a guy who has 54 goals, and 55 assists in his short NHL career. Joe Thornton is "pass first". Valterri Filppula is "pass first". I think it would be misleading to describe Nyquist's game in a similar fashion. So far in his short career he's been a significantly better finisher than most NHLers.

I'd like to see Blashill behind the bench. Or Dave Tippett, if Phoenix goes in a different direction. I like Blashill because he's already familiar with the talent, they've bought into his scheme, he's got report with the guys, and he's won with them. I like Tippett because he's got about 20 fewer career wins than Babs, with about one twentieth the amount of talent. Tippett gets more out of less than anyone in the league and I"d love to see what he could do with a payroll, some stability, and some quality hockey players. When it comes to who is better, the results speak for themselves. Quenneville, Hitch, and Sutter have credentials that surpass Babs. Laviollete and Julien are in the same ballpark. Vignault, Trotz, Tippet, and Mclellan are nipping at his heals. Edit: I would add that this is a rough ranking of guys based on a few variables (Cups, finals appearances, career wins). Ideally you'd rank these guys on a few other factors as well. Notably, long playoff runs, President's trophy wins, division wins, injuries, quality of team, etc. As all make a major difference in either A) determining who is best, or B) identifying legit reasons why they've struggled. I just don't have the time to do it though, and I suspect you'd probably end up with the same guys (in a slightly different order) anyway.

I agree with most of that. But I don't really know why people insist on comparing Babcock to Bowman anyway. It's an apples to oranges comparison. God knows I'm more critical of Babcock's image than most, but even so I'll readily admit that comparing him to the most successful coach of all time, in the pre-cap world, with teams full of the greatest talent in the game's history...is bulls***. It yields nothing useful. Babcock should be compared to his peers. By which standard he's better than most, about the same as others, and less good than a couple.

I wasn't making any argument. I was just providing context for the current discussion. Edit: To provide even more context, I looked up the production from the next three highest d-scorers for each of those teams, and Detroit slightly above average there as well. So, my next question: Could it be "how" the defense is scoring that's the problem? By which I mean, are they "producing" offense by making things happen, or are they getting on the score sheet because the forwards are scoring pretty well? Again, no answers here. Just questions.

I was looking at top defenses (in terms of scoring) yesterday, and one of the things I noticed is that their top guys don't noticeably outpace our top guys. Here's the point production of the top three defensive scorers for a random assortment of quality teams. Nash: 51, 45, 35: Total 131 Wash: 47, 39, 24: Total 110 Mtl: 52, 34, 14: Total 108 TB: 37, 36, 30: Total 103 Ana: 36, 33, 31: Total 100 Det: 40, 31, 25: Total 96 NYR: 45, 26, 25: Total 96 Stl: 41, 40, 14: Total 95 NYI: 32, 29, 29: Total 90 Pit: 54, 17, 17: Total 88 Chi: 41, 31, 15: Total 87 So, a couple of things. 1. Obviously we didn't have Zidlicky's points until recently. And without him we've got about 15 points fewer. 2. This doesn't say anything about how any of these guys or teams are getting their points (i.e. powerplay vs. even strength). 3. Obviously we're not looking at the defensive strength of these same players, but our top three of Kronwall, Zidlicky, Dekeyser aren't slouches on defense either. Do you guys think it's how we're using them or what? Because production wise we seem to be at least a reasonably skilled team from the back end.

Not really sure if you've noticed, but Detroit's shot suppression game isn't exactly exhilarating to watch. Last I knew we were at, or near, the top of teams with fewest shots (for and against) per game. These days it looks like we're not too different from New Jersey.

What do you mean? We're in excellent cap condition. Babs doesn't have "top players" because the ones we had got old, and the ones we will have aren't old enough yet. If Kenny had wanted to, he likely could have signed a bunch of second tier stars (e.g. Vanek, Moulson, etc.), we definitely have the space. But legit "top talent" doesn't really hit the market much, and as previously mentioned our home grown "top talent" is either too old, or too young, currently. And just to be optimistic, I'd like to point out that Tatar AND Nyquist are both coming off freshman and sophomore seasons which rival or surpass the freshman and sophomore seasons that Datsyuk and Zetterberg put up. So there's plenty of reason to believe we've got top players coming (in addition to all the first rate prospects we've got coming too). Contrary to the narrative, Mike Babcock has had (and will have again) plenty of talent to work with as coach of the Red Wings.

Of course! Why didn't I think of that?

I find it odd that you're lamenting the job the GM has done in a year where we've younger, bigger, more skilled, and healthier than we've been in years. And in the same year where he went out, got the coach exactly what he wanted at the trade deadline, and those two players are playing better than anybody on the team (other than Abby). What else do you want Holland to do? Other than coach and/or play the actual games himself, I think he's done a pretty good job.

As always, glad to see Tootoo doing well. He was a classy guy when he was here, and I'm happy to see him land on his feet. Hopefully this season's effort will earn him something a little bit more long term from the Devils. He probably wouldn't be a bad guy to have around during their rebuild. He's got the right attitude and the right work ethic. Probably isn't going to make a difference on the ice most nights, but could be a good locker room guy for the kids they'll be bringing in soon.

Didn't have a chance to watch the game, but glad they got the win. How'd we look? I see the refs helped us out a little on the OT winner. When will the league, Bettman, the refs, etc. be held accountable for their Red Wings bias? I mean, first the Dallas game and now this? Lol.

If Babs had eleventy billion cups I'd cut him some slack too.

Well, you can argue it all you want. But Mike Babcock is on record as saying this is the best team, AND the most offensively capable team, we've had since 2009. If you completely disagree, then maybe that says something about the coach you favor.

Again, I think he's a good coach too. But I don't think he's the right one for this team right now. The proof is in the pudding. He's got a very good team right now, its up to him to do something with it. I don't expect a cup this year. But I do expect more than a late season collapse and early playoff exit. And I don't think that's asking too much out of a top coach leading a team full of 20+ goal scorers and veteran stars.

Point taken. But struggle more than what? Repeated first round loses and late season floundering? I'm not talking about replacing him after a whole bunch of division or conference championships. When was the last time we even won our division? Its not like he's tearing up the regular season and then losing playoff Heartbreakers. We've been consistently mediocre of late. He's got a bigger , younger, healthier, and more talented lineup than he's had in years. If he can't get it done this season, I don't see why it would be such a bad idea to consider a change in direction. You take that back! I have never, ever, been on the Babcock bandwagon and that is well documented around here lol.

I think he does stand in the way. Elsewhere I have pointed out that when our team was in the midst of its best winning streaks, and 5 on 5 scoring this year, he's repeatedly castigated the team and changed the lines to get the goals against down lower. He has repeatedly changed a winning lineup, for one that loses, although by a closer goal margin. He wants a banging, crashing, defense first style of play, and we just dont have the team built for that.

I've seen mike Babcock regularly referred to as a genius, and a hero around here. And the fact that the mere idea of replacing him is met with such objection, seems to echo that. I'm not saying g replaced him with Marc Crawford or john tortorella. But I am saying that its not unrealistic to think that blashill could do better with this team full of guys he's already won with.

I'm sure you are lol.

You're obscuring the point though. I was simply stating that those were great teams, and if he were so heads and tails better than every other coach then he probably should have won with them. And if he didn't win with those great teams, then clearly he's not so excellent that talk of replacing him is as absurd as it is often made out to be.

Because I don't believe he is great. I think he's good. And I think he'd be great in an organization that shared his philosophy. But in this one he's a square peg in a round hole. As his use of legwand, Weiss, glendening, and Anderson attest. Get a coach who knows how to utilize the types of talent our organization supplies. That's easier than finding a new gm, scouts, etc. And why would you want to anyway? They're more accomplished than he is...by a lot.

Because we are a team full of guys who, because of our late round picks, were selected for their hockey smarts and skill level. And not because of their physically dominant traits. And because he's a coach who consistent wants to subordinate offense for "heaviness", and shot suppression. He'd be a great coach for teams like Columbus, LA, or Anaheim. But not for a team full of guys who learned how to play the game in a European, puck possession, type system.