Mike Babcock addressed the media after his team’s 4-3 overtime loss to the Columbus Blue Jackets on Monday night, dropping the Leafs’ record to 5-3-2 on the season.
On the team starting out down 2-0, coming back, and running into penalty trouble:
Obviously, we lost two battles there right at the start of the game and they scored two goals right away. I thought we really got our game going. I thought we were playing good, but tonight we were in the box — was it five? If you count the one in overtime, that’s six times? The penalties were hooking and slashing… I don’t even know what they are. Let me look right here. What are they? Slashing, tripping, hooking, tripping, tripping.
On whether he got an explanation from the ref for the OT penalty-shot call:
I didn’t. It was hooking. He had his stick on the guy. You put your stick on a guy’s hands, you go to the box. When you go to the box many times… If you remember the previous game, we went to the box too many times. If you remember the game before, we went to the box too many times. After a while, it is nobody else. Own it and get on with it.
On whether they’re lazy penalties:
They’re just putting your stick on people. Put stick on puck, not stick on hands. Let’s have a quick look: Tripping, tripping, interference, delay of game, slashing. That’s two games ago. Holding, tripping, hooking… That’s on us.
On Jake Muzzin’s comments that the team needs to improve defensively:
I agree with him. Issues for us: Shift length. Discipline, and shift length, and then sorting out defensively. We do lots of good things. The ability to maintain it and do it for 60 hasn’t ben something that we’ve done game in and game out. That’s what good teams do. You’ve got to mature and grow up as a group for that to happen. You just have to. The level of focus that you bring to your job each day, no matter what job you do, has to be at a high end.
