Fantasy Impact: The Toronto Maple Leafs have hired Mike Babcock to be their new Head Coach.
The Maple Leafs get: the man who is widely regarded as one of the two best coaches in hockey right now (along with Chicago’s Joel Quenneville).
Dobber’s Humble Pie: First of all, I feel an obligation to eat some. I’m the first person to run my mouth off about things and brag about it when I’m right, so I also need to eat the humble pie that comes with that when I’m wrong. Here is what I said in today’s ramblings:
And I also said this:
And of course, last week I Tweeted this:
I was wrong. Apparently, Babcock wanted the challenge. Couldn’t be the money, because I’m sure the Sabres’ owner Terry Pegula would have matched any offer. So the challenge, then. The problem is – Leafs’ fans and media will wonder why three years from now he hasn’t won a Cup yet. And he’ll be chased out of town when the team slumps to start Year 4.
Listen – Babcock is considered one of the two best coaches in all of hockey. Well, when Randy Carlyle was hired he was widely considered a Top 5 coach. Maybe not Top 2, but Top 5 for sure. Ron Wilson – same deal. Fans were thrilled about both hires. And look what happened. And when Brian Burke was hired as GM, he was in my opinion the best GM in hockey. Even when he was fired I still considered him in the Top 5. But he was given 3.5 years to fix a team that needed seven years to fix.
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