EDMONTON, Alberta (AP) — The Edmonton Oilers named Mike Babcock as their coach on Tuesday, hiring the polarizing taskmaster after the NHL cleared him last week following an investigation into his ill-fated 2023 stint in Columbus that ended without him working a game.
Babcock is now in charge of trying to get Connor McDavid and Leon Draisaitl the Stanley Cup a decade into two of the best hockey players on the planet falling short of that elusive goal.
The 63-year-old has championship experience from coaching Detroit to the Cup in 2008. He also has made two other trips to the final, with Anaheim in ‘03 and when the Red Wings went again in ’09 and lost to Pittsburgh, and guided Canada to back-to-back Olympic goal medals in 2010 and '14.
Babcock also brings baggage.
He stepped down from the Blue Jackets job before training camp in September 2023 after taking the job on July 1. At the time, Babcock’s requests for personal photos from players in an attempt to get to know them drew criticism as an invasion of privacy.
When word emerged that Edmonton was interested in hiring Babcock, the NHL Players' Association asked the league to review what happened three years ago. After conducting it, the NHL in a statement said it found nothing to prevent him from being employed by a team.
Babcock has not coached a game in the league since being fired by Toronto 23 games into the 2019-20 season.
Once considered one of the best in the profession, former players have spoken out about his old-school tendencies that some say can be considered bullying.
A report surfaced after the Maple Leafs fired Babcock that he had asked Mitch Marner to share his ranking of teammates from hardest- to least-hardest working and then shared that with the rest of the group. Former Red Wings player Johan Franzen told a Swedish outlet that Babcock was the worst person he had ever met and said at one point he was terrified to go to the rink.
This spring, retired player and vocal critic Mike Commodore renewed his opposition to Babcock getting a job.
“I don’t want to hear another word about how important mental health is for us when you literally just paved the way, cleared the way for Mike Babcock to get another opportunity in the NHL and put him in another position of power where he can abuse people,” Commodore said on the “Clearing the Crease” podcast.
Daniel Winnik, who played for Babcock in 2015-16 with the Leafs, last week called him “the only guy that's ever made me hate hockey.”
“I just hated coming to the rink,” Winnik said on TSN 1050 radio in Toronto on Thursday. "He's just a bully."
The Oilers turned to Babcock after being denied permission by division-rival Vegas to interview 2023 Stanley Cup-winning coach Bruce Cassidy, whom the Golden Knights fired on March 30 with eight games left in the regular season, for their vacancy because he remains under contract for one more year. That leaked while Kris Knoblauch, who coached Edmonton to consecutive trips to the Cup final in 2024 and '25, was still employed, and he was dismissed a few days later.
That sequence of events led to choosing Babcock, whose 700 regular season and 90 playoff victories rank 12th and 10th, respectively, in NHL history.
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