After Game 7 Loss, Babcock Ponders Future Of Red Wings, Declines To Talk About His Own
By Ashley Dunkak
@AshleyDunkak
CBS DETROIT - After another first-round exit from the playoffs Wednesday night, Detroit Red Wings head coach Mike Babcock declined to discuss his future. This was the final season on his contract and while the Red Wings would like to bring him back, he will have no shortage of suitors from which to choose.
Immediately after Game 7, however, Babcock had no interest in delving into the topic of his career.
"We'll have a team meeting and a final press conference," Babcock said after the Red Wings lost, 2-0, to the Tampa Bay Lightning at Amalie Arena. "I'll be happy to talk about any of that crap then."
The coach did share his thoughts, however, on the organization as a whole. Thanks to continued contributions from aging superstars in Pavel Datsyuk and Henrik Zetterberg and a collection of talented young players, the Red Wings have been maintaining their playoff tradition. Continuing that relatively high level of play, however, has come with a cost, one Babcock pointed out Wednesday.
"We've got lots of good young players, no question about it, and ideally we've got some good ones coming," Babcock said. "But who's going to replace Pav? And I don't think Pav's going anywhere right away, but that's what you've got to do. In the end, you've got to have big-time players up the middle and on the back to be successful, so those are questions in our organization that we work towards, and we've been drafting good and developing good, but we've been winning too much. That's the facts."
Not so many years ago, Detroit played for the Stanley Cup in back-to-back seasons, 2008 and 2009. The next two seasons, 2010 and 2011, the Red Wings made it to the second round. In the four seasons since, the Red Wings have made it out of the first round only once.
Instead of answering directly a question of whether he is pleased with the progress of the team, Babcock offered an assessment of the current state of the organization.
"Well, I would tell you this, is that our team's not as good as it was," Babcock said. "It's very evident we battled our butt off to get in the playoffs. They picked us - and whether you guys know what you're talking about or not, the sports writers picked us to miss the playoffs, and then they pick us - no one even picks us to win in the playoffs. I thought we gave that team a real good run for their money to say the least. And so you are what you are.
"[Tampa Bay has] a young team that they were bad here for long enough that they were able to rebuild it, and they've got good young players, and they've got young players in key positions," Babcock continued. "Some of our best players are 34, 35, 37, so any way you look at it, we're a team that has changed a ton of players. We're a team that's added a lot of youth to our lineup, but right now on the outside they don't pick us as a Stanley Cup contender."
Babcock, like just about everyone in the business, wants to win the Stanley Cup. As a desirable free agent, he can pick which situation he believes gives him the best chance to reach that goal. At the same time, Babcock can set a new standard of pay for NHL head coaches.
Red Wings defenseman Jonathan Ericsson said after Wednesday's game that he had not thought about whether Babcock will be back. As far as whether he wants Babcock to return, Ericsson chuckled.
"It's not my call," Ericsson said. "I can say that he's a really good coach, so I'm sure a lot of teams want him, and he's been doing a really good job for us so far."