Mike Babcock addressed the media after practice on Friday, discussing areas for improvement from the home opener, the team’s blue line, the Rielly-Hainsey pairing, and more.
As the process continues, how valuable was the challenge that your club saw Wednesday night moving forward?
Babcock: I think every night in the league you’re going to get a challenge. The teams aren’t coming in here to lose. They’re coming in here to win. Everybody at this time of year is real confident in their team and feeling good about themselves. We’ve got to get confidence by being better through the neutral zone with the puck, by being harder on the other team in the offensive zone, and spending more time there so that it is easier for our D to execute. We never did a very good job of that and made it hard for ourselves.
Did you get a chance last night to see two opponents coming up (Ottawa and Chicago)?
Babcock: Obviously, when they are playing each other, you get to see them both. But we just get ready for Ottawa and then we’ll worry about Chicago after that. It’s a big game against Ottawa and we want to get off to a good start. We want to play better than we’ve played. Our focus is just to take a step.
How do you feel about the state of your defense after the first game? Do you think the problems were because of your forwards or is this going to be have to be something you fix?
Babcock: It’s interesting what I heard about and all of that stuff… our defense is just fine. But I can tell you this right now: If you don’t play in the offensive zone or put pressure on the other team’s D, your D never looks very good. That is a five-man unit that has to make that happen, and that didn’t happen.
Frederik Andersen said he had a good feeling going through camp into this season. What impressions has he made on you so far?
Babcock: I just think… He’s played one game, right? So it means very little. But what I would say to you is his confidence has grown over the time he’s been here. He’s worked harder and he’s in better shape. Just by going through the process, you get mentally tougher. You get hardened. Therefore, he has a chance to become a better goalie. Ideally… We’ve got gotten a lot better, contrary to what people believe, defensively. So that should give up fewer of the quality chances that he seems to get scored on. Over a period of time, you get to know your goalie pretty good, so you can eliminate what doesn’t work for him.
What sort of room for growth do you see for Rielly and Hainsey this season?
Babcock: I just think, if you look at our top four with the exception of Z, their night wasn’t one of the… But I think we were all in it together the other night. To me, just keep on getting better and be solid defensively. Mo wants to be good offensively. We want him to be a real good shutdown guy. That goes the same for Gards.
We’ve challenged all of our D to be better in certain areas. That is a focus or us. I think we’ve been working at that pretty good.
With all of the talk about contracts and about your younger players, is that just one of the byproducts of having a young, talented team… these kinds of questions are going to prop up?
Babcock: The reason why there is all of this talk, obviously, is because there are lots of you (the media), right?
We wouldn’t be talking about it if you didn’t have the players, also.
Babcock: Yeah, but there are also a lot of you, right? But I think that is the greatest thing about being with the Leafs. There is a lot of you. That means there is a lot of fans and a lot of reason to have you. If we didn’t have that, we wouldn’t have the coverage. We wouldn’t have this.
But to me, it’s real simple. They have got representatives and they’re trying to do their job. Kyle is trying to do his job. We are in a market where there is always lots of noise. We don’t worry about the noise. Just get on with doing your job.
Your centers had a good night on the dot the other night. That’s maybe a given with the talent down the middle, but you must be pleased with the numbers.
Babcock: No, that is not a given for sure. What it was, though, is we had 19 d-zone faceoffs five on five in our zone and 10 at five on five in their zone. We can fix that.
