Mike Babcock discussed the need for more bottom-six production, his group’s second-best competitiveness, and the Leafs’ superior performance after the Oilers’ 7-2 loss to Toronto.
You play a team that gets goals from the likes of Lettieri, MacEwen, and Stecher. You aren’t getting much from anyone underneath your first line and your power play. You need more, so how are you going to get it?
Babcock: Yeah, we need more for sure. I think any time when guys are away and they come back, they’re probably not as good. And I thought that probably affected Nuge a little bit tonight, but their bottom six was better than ours.
But the bottom line is they were better than us. They were more competitive than us. They were quicker than us. They were better. We can blame anybody we want as a group. As a coach, Jim Hiller had his group playing harder than I had my group, so that’s on me.
That’s been a few games in a row here that you haven’t liked your bottom six. You made a couple changes tonight. How are you going to get these foot soldiers pitching in a bit more?
Babcock: I just think the big thing is obviously we feel fortunate to have got Nuge back, and Hyms back. If you look at our lineup, we got three guys back that we didn’t have a week ago. But we also have played way stronger teams this last little bit than we’d played at the start, and so just goes to show you, when you play against real good players, the NHL is a hard league, and obviously that’s exposing us.
But if you look at our whole group, we weren’t good enough, so to blame the bottom-six forwards tonight would be unfair, I think.
You’ve emphasized the neutral zone. How did you feel about what happened in the neutral zone tonight?
Babcock: I didn’t like anything about tonight. I thought Formenton played hard. I thought Hyman played hard. I thought Murphy played hard. I thought Shea and Bouch… We didn’t have enough guys. If you’re going through the list and you’re talking about a few guys, that’s not enough guys.
Murphy fought, but he’s one of your higher ice-time guys. Would you look to somebody else to maybe bring a spark if there’s going to be fisticuffs?
Babcock: That’s not my department. No, I just put the guys on the ice. The bottom line is… I mean, you watch the game. It was frustrating for you, never mind the fans or players. But you’re frustrated because you didn’t get prepared good enough and work hard enough. Who’s that on? That’s on us.
Big picture here: The record is really good, but there have been some dips in the quality of play here lately. Where are you at with where the group stands?
Babcock: It’s interesting you say that. I loved our last game. I thought it was great. We played a really good team, and I thought we were ultra competitive. I thought they took over at times. I thought we took over at times. And my hope for today was we were going to match that level of compete and then raise it. We didn’t do any of that, so that’s a step back. But to say that we haven’t played hard or that this is a trend—I don’t buy any of that crap. But tonight wasn’t good enough. Period.
With the group, when you talk about not being good enough tonight, what do you go at to try and fix so that you make sure next time whatever was missing is there? How do you get at it?
Babcock: This is what I’m going to do. I’m going to go home, and I’m going to get a good night’s sleep, and then I’m going to get up tomorrow, and I’m going to think about that. But for me, getting all wound up here right now—I mean, I already stood there. In your own building on a Saturday night, that should be automatic. Should never get outworked for it.
Can you coach a team to be ready for Saturday night against the Toronto Maple Leafs?
Babcock: I thought we were going to be, right? We weren’t. But give them credit. They got ready. They came in here. They’re on a road trip. They got prepared, and they played harder and longer and faster than we did. Better defensively. Better offensively. Just better.
