Mike Babcock addressed the media after the morning skate on Thursday, discussing William Nylander’s play of late, Hunwick and Polak’s value, why it didn’t work out with Peter Holland, and more.
What difference have you seen in Willy since you put him back with Matthews and Hyman?
Mike Babcock: You’ve got the wrong order there. What difference is in Willy since he got back at her? Then he got a chance to play with different guys. First what he did is he started to compete. He didn’t worry about scoring, and he didn’t worry about all the things that don’t matter. He worried about competing. When you get fixated on scoring when you’re a scorer, you never score. Check, backcheck, forecheck, get to the net. Do good things, good things happen. We all have a tendency to get in our own way when things don’t get our way, especially when we’re young. If you just, in this league, live scared… so when you’ve got it going really good, you work hard every single day because you know it might turn on you. When you’re going bad, you work as hard as you can because it might turn for you. So what’s the moral of the story? Compete.
The Hunwick and Polak pairing – what constitutes a good game for them?
Babcock: There is a bunch of ways to look at the game. Corsi is one way, right? But who turns the video on and rewinds to see if those shots actually hit the net? Because our math and theirs don’t add up. So what I do is say, “did the puck go in, or did they get scoring chances against?” What I find is the puck doesn’t go in and they don’t give up a lot of scoring chances. And they’re my best penalty killers. So that’s a good game for them.
What challenge does the Coyotes coming in tonight present for you guys?
Babcock: Everybody in the league is a challenge. When you’re us, there isn’t one game that you can come in and say, “we’re just going to handle this team.” That’s not the type of team that we are yet. They’re like us. They’re young and they’re fast and they’re energetic and they’re on top of you. [Dave Tippett] is a good coach. He always has them organized. They count on their goaltender. They don’t mind saying, “hey, you’re going to stop 40 tonight.” But, in saying that, they don’t let you get to the net easy. They’re on the inside, they’re above you, they make you work to get there. Lots of nights the Corsi numbers may look good but you never really got on the inside at all.
You talked about Holland a bit yesterday. What was it specifically that didn’t work out with him here?
Babcock: Our team, if you look at it, Naz was going to play center. Bozak was going to play center, and Matthews was going to play center. He’s not a penalty kill type guy. That fourth line center spot… when we looked at left wing for him, we had that all filled up. Sometimes in life, that’s just the way it goes. Another situation for you. It goes over and over every year in the league. There are lots of players who don’t work in one spot but get an opportunity and actually learn something in the spot they’re at. They go with a clean slate, they get better. I think I said it yesterday. We wish him well. Not today, but every other day. Hope he ends up catching on and doing real well. He had a good start, which is positive for him. And go from there. That’s kind of it.
Do you see Auston on track for being that dominant center by Christmas time, like you mentioned?
Babcock: Oh, I think he’s pretty good.
Do you think Soshnikov is a guy who could potentially give you some offense?
Babcock: Well, you know, you go through his games – I looked at that the other day – he generates shots. He works real hard. He’s competitive. He’s nasty. I’m hoping he’s going to be able to score 15-18-20 goals. I’m sure he thinks he can. Sosh, probably, is one of those guys who is sitting there on the fourth line wondering why he hasn’t played better than that to have more opportunity. But I think he’s doing a good job for us and he’s getting better.
Is that why you added him to the powerplay?
Babcock: We just thought that we had two D on that powerplay and it wasn’t going quite as good. So we put Sosh there. He gets the puck back for those guys all the time. Can he be a net front guy on the powerplay? Can he be a flank guy on the powerplay? We’re going to find out all over time.
