SIMMONS: Everyone's to blame — players, coach, GM — for Mike Babcock's firing - Toronto Sun

Mike Babcock had to coach better. It really is that simple.

And Kyle Dubas had to manage better. And the Maple Leafs players — especially the high-priced help — had to play better.

This has been a collective collapse, this dismal Maple Leafs s

eason so far. A collapse that wound up costing Babcock his job in his fifth year as the highest-paid coach in hockey. The firing wasn’t really a surprise. The surprise was it didn’t happen last June when it probably should have.

This has been a disastrous and disappointing 23 games, and with Sheldon Keefe, Dubas’ long-time replacement-in-waiting now behind the bench, the focus of Maple Leafs difficulty now shifts to the rather inexperienced general manager.

He was Dubas yesterday. Dubious today. That’s what happens when a team trips all over itself this season.

But there’s an order of blame that has always filtered through professional sports. It’s coach first, GM second. That doesn’t make it right —that’s just the way it works. The coach goes, the GM stays, and the players, deserving of a whole lot of questioning here, go on with their lives, well-paid and relatively unscathed.

Babcock probably should have been fired at the end of the Boston playoff series last season and, if not then, he should have been fired after the embarrassing game in Pittsburgh on Saturday night. But with Hall of Fame weekend in Toronto and the general managers’ meetings to follow, the Leafs waited a day or so longer than they needed to.

There is a look that teams in distress tend to have. It’s not really a mystery. They stop playing hard. They stop executing. They stop caring. It’s not intentional. It’s like being in school. You can’t have the same teacher year after year after year and continue to achieve. There comes a time when you need to hear another voice.

There is no questioning that the time had come for Babcock, who has never been fired before in the previous 16 NHL seasons he was manning the bench. That, by itself, is rather amazing. He said the other day he would bet on himself as the Leafs were looking for a way to break through. Clearly, Shanahan, who hired him, who privately backed him last May when Dubas may have thought otherwise, didn’t want in on the bet. He came to the same conclusion that Dubas did.

It was time. It wasn’t the six losses in a row or the won-loss record that did in Babcock. It was the way in which his team played.

It wasn’t that the Leafs lost, it was how they lost. It was mistakes that were never corrected. It was the constant disorganization on defence that was apparent year after year, without any real repair. The Leafs lost in the first round three years in a row, against Washington and Boston twice, and in each of those series their special teams weren’t playoff-ready.

They were bad before; this season, they’ve been terrible.

Every winning team in hockey needs structure, an identity, a competitive edge. The Leafs lacked structure this season — and often in past years — they lacked an identity. They had no real competitive edge. They got scored on early in periods and late in periods. Against Boston on Friday night, they got scored on 11 seconds into the third period. Against their largest rival, that’s telling.

The team wasn’t ready to play, wasn’t ready to compete, wasn’t prepared well enough, had too many bad habits — a laundry list awaits Keefe, who long ago distanced himself from the nefarious David Frost, his one-time mentor, as he takes over an NHL team for the very first time.

He has to improve the Leafs’ play without the puck, their offensive creativity, find a way to better protect Frederik Andersen in goal, find a way to deal with back-to-back games without giving points away, find a way to get more out of Auston Matthews, John Tavares, Mitch Marner when healthy, William Nylander, Morgan Rielly and, yes, Tyson Barrie. Those are the skill players. Not one of them is having a great season. Some are having terrible years.

Keefe, like all coaches, will need his best players to be his best players. He can’t coach a team that gives up the first goal almost every night. He can’t coach a team with a dysfunctional power play and too many predictable moves, like neutral-zone drop passes that rarely seem to work.

Keefe has to be different from Babcock in both style and substance — that’s the challenge here. That’s what the Leafs are banking on. Dubas likes his roster. Shanahan likes it, too. Neither should like the salary-cap mess they’ve played themselves into. That’s strangling. This team may not be a Stanley Cup champion — this isn’t a St. Louis firing — but the team, on paper, is good enough to be in the playoffs and to contend and see where they go from here.

This was a difficult day for Shanahan, who brought Babcock to Toronto. He was probably the last believer in Babcock, but after Saturday night, against what’s left of the Penguins, how could you believe anymore?

“Our game is not meeting our expectations,” said Shanahan. “There are key elements and attention to detail that has been missing often all year.”

A new season begins on Thursday night in Scottsdale. The coach gets time to find his legs. The general manager gets no time. For now, the growing tension over the Maple Leafs’ lack of performance continues.

LET THE RECORD SHOW

Here’s a look at Mike Babcock’s coaching record with the Leafs and the Detroit Red Wings, with whom he won a Stanley Cup.

W-L-OTL

Record with Leafs: 173-133-45

2015-16: 29-42-11

2016-17: 40-27-15

2017-18: 49-26-7

2018-19: 46-28-8

2019-20: 9-10-4

Playoff record with Leafs: 8-12

Record with Red Wings: 458-223-105

Playoff record with Red Wings: 67-56, won one Stanley Cup

ssimmons@postmedia.com

twitter.com/simmonssteve

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November 21, 2019 at 09:14PM