The Detroit Red Wings wanted to keep Mike Babcock as their head coach, but general manager Ken Holland said the club wasn’t willing to go as far as the Toronto Maple Leafs’ eight-year term.
In an appearance on Prime Time Sports with Bob McCown and Ken Reid, Holland explained the Red Wings’ rationale.
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“I had offered Mike (Babcock) a four-year extension (last) June and (another) one this winter in January,” Holland said Thursday on Sportsnet 590 The Fan. “When the season ended, we didn’t give him a (new) offer and he wanted permission to explore the market.
“We told him our position,” said Holland. “(Mike) understood that we weren’t prepared to go any further. I was open to lesser (term)…We haven’t gone as far as we would’ve liked to (in the post-season). We had a disappointing loss to Tampa Bay and a disappointing loss to Chicago. Given we haven’t had as much playoff success, he understood what I could put on the table in terms of term, it was short in terms of what someone else could offer.”
Babcock coached for 10 seasons in Detroit and developed an incredibly close relationship with Holland, but the Detroit general manager said he could only do what was best for the long-term health of the organization.
“We put something that I felt was fair for the Detroit Red Wings. It’s the way I’ve done business for the last 18 years. Some people have left. Mike left in this case. (Sergei) Fedorov left…That’s my managerial style. I didn’t change. Ultimately Mike made a decision (to leave).”
Holland said Detroit’s prior offers to Babcock would’ve made him the highest-paid coach in the NHL, but they were not close to Toronto in terms of overall cost.
“Any time you’re trying to convince a happy employee (to leave), you got to wedge them out of there and show them that they’re important and part of that is term and salary,” he said of Toronto’s eight-year, $50-million offer to Babcock. “We felt our position, given all these things, was a position we felt good about.”
As of now, Holland said Jeff Blashill, the head coach of Detroit’s AHL affiliate in Grand Rapids, is the leading candidate to replace Babcock. But he added that it will be tough to replace the kind of working relationship he developed with Babcock over the past decade, which included 10 playoff appearances, two gold medals for Team Canada and a Stanley Cup championship.
“(Mike) got really emotional,” Holland said of their meeting on Tuesday before Babcock accepted Toronto’s offer on Wednesday. “He told me he thought there was a chance he would leave and I got emotional. I grabbed a Kleenex box on the table and we both started to laugh.”
Ultimately, Holland understood that Babcock made a business decision and understands why Toronto, among other teams, were willing to go so far to lure one of the best coaches in the NHL.
“”When he walks into a room, he’s got a presence,” said Holland. “He got a tremendous work ethic. He makes people accountable. He’s demanding. He makes people better. He’s got experience. He gathers information. He’s a tremendous net-worker. He was picking brains of those guys at the Olympics. It all adds up to a man who is tremendously prepared. He knows what the team needs to do. He knows how to get the most out of the players.”
