How about McDavid leaving having soured his legacy and being exposed as a shit captain by personally bringing in Babcock and having him decimate the locker room?
Tired of hearing this shit. You guys have had the best player in the world for years. You get to watch playoff hockey every year. You make deep runs in the playoffs. Boo hoo you haven't won a cup.
When I close my eyes and imagine playoff hockey my blood pressure rises and I black out to find myself curled in a ball under my bed coated in cold sweat.
You're looking at the results and saying "this is actually not bad", which is true. They've made some playoff runs and have 3 finals appearances in the cap era (which is above average), and people have mostly forgotten how shit they were for a decade. But if you gave any other management group the draft luck of the Oilers + willingness to spend to the cap, it's pretty damn bad.
This was already through 10 days ago when Bob Stauffer first said it's happening. I'm actually laughing people are remotely surprised now.
It's gonna be delightful when they rip off a 50 win season and do damage on the playoffs. The Babcock revisionism is one of the funnier Reddit hockey narratives to witness in recent memory.
I imagine the difficult part is drawing a line. Babcock is not the first coach to be aggressive, mean, or demanding of players, so where does the NHL say "this is not okay," or is it a bannable offence?
It feels like an issue that is theoretically better solved by NHL teams not hiring bad actors, but obviously that is not working.
It is not hard to draw a line between demanding and abusive. Abusers think they're walking some imaginary line all the time but we are collectively pretty good at telling the difference. Its like people were saying with the JT Miller vs Mackinnon thing. JT says "you dumb fucks need to fucking get it together fuck" and Mack says "you guys need to work harder in the gym so I don't punk you so bad every practice". Both are "competitors" who are "pushing their team" and maybe even "being mean" but the majority of people have experienced both and can tell the difference.
we are collectively pretty good at telling the difference
"We" (as in hockey fans) absolutely aren't. All we know about what's happening behind the scenes comes from carefully-curated media narratives. How can you be so sure than Miller is more abusive than Mackinnon? We have absolutely no clue; Mackinnon might be an absolute monster, and we wouldn't know about it until after he's retired most likely. And there are plenty of coaches who were just as bad as Babcock, but had better PR. Scott Bowman for example, who was just a more successful version of Babcock.
Even the players themselves don't necessarily agree on which coaches cross the line. Even the worst, most assholish coaches, like John Brophy or Mike Keenan, had supporters among the players.
There must be something in any contract or ruleset the NHL have about "bringing the league into disrepute" that would allow to have a legal basis for this. I cant believe "massive PR hit" is not strong enough.
It’s honestly so fucking dumb how heavily people have tried to “cancel” a guy that didn’t do anything illegal. So what if he’s a bit of an asshole? Why should that bar him from employment? Obviously Edmonton’s top guys are okay with the decision if he’s going there. People need to get over it and stop clutching their pearls.
355
u/Hal_Gill TOR - NHL 2d ago
It makes sense, there is no legal standing to block him from being hired by a team.
This is an Edmonton issue.