Reports suggest that the Edmonton Oilers will hire former Toronto Maple Leafs head coach Mike Babcock, bringing him back to the NHL for the first time since a brief hiring by Columbus in the off-season of 2023.Christopher Katsarov/The Canadian Press
According to multiple reports, Mike Babcock may soon be named the new head coach of the Edmonton Oilers.
The news of Babcock’s hiring is mildly surprising. He hasn’t coached in the NHL in six years. We’re not counting his abortive run in Columbus, where he was hired and fired in the space of one off-season.
What’s really surprising is the reaction to this news. You’d think they were talking about putting the Antichrist in charge of the Salvation Army’s Christmas drive, rather than hiring a bully to run a hockey team.
Bullies and hockey go together like megalomaniacs and soccer. They’re part of the fun.
Babcock’s mistake wasn’t being a bully. The sport is still full of unhinged rageaholics in charge. One of them is within touching distance of the Stanley Cup as we speak.
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Babcock’s error was that he was too Catholic in his bullying. He bullied the future hall of famers just as hard as the scrubs. Harder, maybe. In this sense, he was kind of a progressive bully – the sort who doesn’t make class distinctions.
Given the current state of global leadership, Babcock’s crimes now seem like misdemeanours. He once asked a player to rank his teammates by laziness, and then told those teammates. He instructed employees to show him the photo roll on their phones.
Apparently, adult hockey players who make millions of dollars and are surrounded by whole teams of personal retainers are unable to say, “Come again?” Or better yet, to follow their trained instincts and go over a desk.
At this point, you’re beginning to feel something like empathy for Babcock, if not sympathy. He appears to be the classically insecure man’s man. The sort of guy who starts rolling up his sleeves if you accidentally bump shoulders in the dairy aisle.
Oilers' captain Connor McDavid could have a channel to voice his frustrations with Babcock as the head coach, Cathal Kelly writes.Kyusung Gong/The Associated Press
Perhaps this was scary once, but given how far and hard Babcock has fallen, it’s difficult to believe that he could frighten an NHL usher these days, never mind a player.
Let’s say he does get hired. And then let’s say he reverts to Bad Babcock and starts giving Connor McDavid the gears on a Tuesday morning. McDavid could have him run out of Alberta by dinner. All it would take is one cocked eyebrow when the coach’s name comes up in a scrum. People will be primed for that signal.
Whatever Edmonton thinks it’s getting, it isn’t 2000s in Detroit ruin-your-career-if-you-cross-me Babcock. It’s some older, chastened version of that coach. It’s the Babcock who must now leap from his seat when the captain enters the room, rather than the other way around.
With that in mind, you get what Edmonton likes about Babcock. They don’t need another soft touch who talks to the players in their own language.
What they need is someone with an unusual set of characteristics. Someone with a reputation, but also someone compromised. Someone famous for their cruelty, but who knows how to take orders. Someone who can be controlled by the person who actually runs the organization – McDavid.
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It would be especially helpful if this person fit the Lee Harvey Oswald mould – a patsy, if and when the time comes.
Babcock doesn’t just fit that profile. He’s the only name brand in hockey who does so.
McDavid doesn’t scream much, but must feel like screaming a lot. Now he’ll have someone to do the screaming for him.
Someone needs to be shown the whip hand before they’ll skate back on defence? McDavid just has to wander into the coach’s office and wonder aloud about it.
A younger, more bankable, less compromised coach might not like being told what to do by a guy who’s never won a Stanley Cup or an Olympic gold medal. Babcock doesn’t have that luxury.
He can either make McDavid happy or he can go back to Saskatchewan and become Canada’s first full-time moose hunter. Because if Babcock fails in Edmonton, with the best player in the world on the roster, that is truly it. This is his last shot at relevance. If he must become a 20-something’s tactical butler in order to achieve it, then so be it.
Babcock, seen here behind the Leafs bench in 2019, wouldn't be the same fiery coach in Edmonton in 2026, Cathal Kelly writes.Maddie Meyer/Getty Images
It even fits with the current fashion at legacy franchises for taking wild swings on neophytes and/or outcasts, a la the current White House. Martin St. Louis in Montreal; John Chayka in Toronto; Babcock in Edmonton. All these hires would be of a piece.
If things improve for the Oilers next season, even a little, this was a good hire. If they take the final step, it’s the greatest management brainwave ever.
And if things go badly wrong in Edmonton, well, you know whose fault that was – Mr. Screams-A-Lot.
The Oilers could even time it so that Babcock is fired as McDavid leaves via trade or free agency. By implication, Babcock was McDavid’s guy – how else could someone so far off the radar have been hired? – and Babcock repaid him with alienation. Hadn’t he done that before, repeatedly? You know what they say about getting what you want. So it wasn’t ownership’s fault at all. Now let’s turn our attention back to the thing that really matters – the draft lottery.
The more you think about it, the more malignly brilliant hiring Babcock would be. This has nothing to do with performance. I continue to believe that most NHL head coaches have about as much impact on team performance as the home arena’s ice maker – which is to say, some, but less than is popularly believed.
What Babcock brings to the Oilers is an expendable heavy with history as well as baggage, who can be jettisoned at any time, for any reason, and without consequence.
If this happens and it works out, NHL teams are going to have go truffling around for other coaches to take down. Then they can be resurrected as cheaper, more pliant and more useful versions of themselves somewhere down the road.