Blashill Tops Short List Of Candidates To Replace Babcock
By Ashley Dunkak
@AshleyDunkak
DETROIT - The search for the next head coach of the Detroit Red Wings will likely not take long, and the team will likely not need to look far. Red Wings general manager Ken Holland made it clear Wednesday, hours after news broke that Mike Babcock would not be returning, that Grand Rapids Griffins head coach Jeff Blashill will have the first crack at filling Babcock's shoes.
The Griffins are currently in the American Hockey League playoffs, and Holland said he does not want to distract from that team's effort, but he also did not commit to waiting until after the playoffs to talk with Blashill. Holland will make the meeting on a non-game day when the team is in Grand Rapids, he said.
"He's the first person I want to talk to," Holland said. "If you go back a year ago, Blash had a year to go on his contract, and I had five teams call and ask for permission to interview Jeff Blashill. I went to Blash, and I said, 'I'll give you two choices - your call. I'll give you a choice to go in and talk to any other team that you want to and your contract stays the same, or I'm going to give you a significant raise' - we doubled his salary - 'and for one year you don't go interview.'"
Blashill took the latter option, choosing to stick with the Red Wings organization, and Holland has not forgotten.
"I owe it to Blash to talk to him first," Holland said. "Based upon that conversation ... I'll decide whether there's more conversations or more interviews or I'll make a decision.
"But again, I like to be loyal to people," Holland added. "Blash was loyal to us. Blash chose to stay. Blash could have interviewed with a lot of teams. Blash has had a real positive impact on younger people in our organization. He's had a real positive impact in Grand Rapids, part of our success here in Detroit, making the playoffs, Blash has had his fingerprints on it, so I owe it to Jeff Blashill that he's the first person I talk to."
Holland would not go so far as to name Blashill the next head coach, of course, but he made it clear Blashill is far and away the top contender for the job.
"My list is going to be short, two or three names," Holland said.
Holland listed several similarities he sees between Babcock and Blashill - both hold players accountable, have a tremendous work ethic, have passion, have a plan, and have had success at multiple levels of the game. More than anything, they win.
"[Blashill] wins wherever he goes," Holland said. "I look at what he did in Western Michigan and getting them into the NCAA tournament. I think he had a tremendous positive ... influence in really building that program. Prior to that he won a championship in I believe Indianapolis. Took over, we've got a thing called the prospect tournament in Traverse City, it's now eight NHL teams. We'd never won that tournament ... His first year we hired him as the Grand Rapids coach, he coached, they won that tournament, they won the Calder Cup.
"Last year, with all the injuries we had in Detroit and all the players up here, they had the same thing down there, they ended up getting I think 99 points," Holland continued. "He was named the coach of the year in the American Hockey League, got 100 points this year, and now in the third round of the playoffs. They were down 2-nothing to Toronto in the first round of the playoffs."
Holland began his press conference Wednesday by thanking Babcock for his 10 years with the Red Wings, and he remained steady in his description of Babcock as one of the best head coaches in the league, if not the best coach. Holland projected optimism about Detroit's future, however.
"Mike decided to go somewhere else - we're not going to fold the franchise," Holland said. "We're going to go to work, and we're going to try to beat Mike. Mike's in Toronto, Mike's down the road, Mike wants to go into Toronto and help them make the playoffs. Well, we want to be in that race and we want to finish ahead of them, so certainly going to make for an interesting kind of side story as we head into the '15-'16 season."
