from Carlos Monarrez of the Detroit Free Press,

Retired Detroit Red Wings forward Darren McCarty said Friday there was a strong current of disrespect from former Wings coach Mike Babcock that spared almost no one and cost the team the Stanley Cup in 2009.

McCarty played for coaches Scotty Bowman and Dave Lewis from 1993 to 2004. He returned for the 2008-09 and ’08-’09 seasons, when Babcock was the coach. The Wings beat the Pittsburgh Penguins in the Cup finals in ’08 and lost to the Pens in the finals the next season.

“And our (dressing) room worked in different ways and when I came back you could tell that things were different,” McCarty told the Free Press, “but the thing that didn’t change was that guys played for each other.

“That’s the key. In spite of him, right? In spite of him. And I learned that more getting into ’09 because we won in ’08 in spite of him and lost in ’09 because of him. That’s exactly the thing because he misused (Pavel) Datsyuk, (Henrik) Zetterberg and just because he’s stubborn and that was his way.”

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