Abel to Yzerman
Fan Post Of The Day: Babcock Deserves Credit
by IwoCPO on 11/12/06 at 06:55 PM ET
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If the months following the Wing ouster at the hands of Edmonton was The Summer of Ken, then it's only fair that a similar microscope hover over the performance of Mike Babcock. By most accounts, he has the team he wants. And, this team is playing the style that suits him. The next 6 months will show whether this grit and hustle we've seen the last two weeks is a brief trend or a makeover that will translate into playoff success.
But for now...credit is due. Our Fan Post of the Day comes from the Detroit News message board and belongs to CBlackburn from Grosse Pointe.
Fan Post of the Day, 12 November, 2006
It’s funny that no one in this forum wants to give Babcock any credit. I say give credit where credit is due. After a grueling west coast road trip - where the Wings didn’t have there usual veteran leaders in Shanny and Yzerman - the ship got righted and we as fans are seeing the results. The team is playing very solid defensively and is a lot more patient with the puck - that is due to coaching.
The penalty kill has gotten better, again due to coaching. It really boiled my blood that everyone in this darn forum wanted Babcock’s head on a silver platter after a 1-3 West coast road trip. That was early in the season and the Wings were struggling to find there identity after the top most prominent leaders on the team had departed. People forget that Scotty Bowman didn’t have success when he first arrived on the scene. In fact, the heavily favored Wings were stunned in the first round by San Jose.
It took Bowman 4 years to win his first championship - and each year the team was heavily favored to win - none more so than 1996 when the Wings won a record 62 games only to get ousted by the Avs. Babcock doesn’t have the resume that Bowman had before he came to this organization. But he took a team to game 7 of the finals. We all saw how dominate the Ducks were. In the Western conference finals they allowed 1 goal the entire series. Yes, a little bit of luck was involved, but at the same time good coaching was evident.
Again, give credit where credit is due. I’m not saying that Babcock is entirely responsible for this turn around, but partially - yes.
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Welcome to Abel to Yzerman, a Red Wing blog since 1977. No other site on the internet has better-researched, fact-laden and better prepared discussions than A2Y. Re-phrase: we do little research, find facts and stats highly overrated and claim little to no preparation. There are 19 readers of A2Y. No more, no less. All of them, except maybe one, are juvenile in nature. Reminding them of that in the comment section will only encourage them to prove that. Your suggestions and critiques are welcome: wphoulihan@gmail.com