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New Oilers coach Mike Babcock on his controversial style: ‘Sometimes the truth is hard’

Babcock was introduced by Edmonton in a news conference on Tuesday. James Maclennan / The Canadian Press via AP

EDMONTON — There will come a time when Mike Babcock goes too far with his Edmonton Oilers, when “telling the truth” crosses the line into disrespect, when hard coaching bleeds into unwelcome coaching. Babcock has spent his life walking that line, and to hear many of his former players tell it, has frequently found himself on the wrong side of it.

It happens to nearly every coach at nearly every level, and it’s going to happen — again — with Babcock.

Babcock isn’t pretending otherwise.

“I know with my wife, sometimes something comes out of my mouth and I wish I could grab the words and pull it back,” Babcock said on Tuesday afternoon, pantomiming the pullback. “Those things are going to happen. You don’t want them to happen (but) they’re going to happen. But I think you’re allowed to apologize and help each other be better.”

Babcock said a lot of things during a 38-minute introductory news conference at Rogers Place, shortly after being named the 19th head coach in Oilers history. He talked about growing and evolving as a person and as a coach. He talked about how everyone on a team, from the top guys to the smallest role players, has to feel “important.” He talked about communication being key. And he didn’t flinch at a barrage of pointed questions in the wake of the controversial hire, calling them “great questions” and noting that he “appreciated” them, even one in which a reporter bluntly asked him how he’ll be able to “be hard on players but not be a d—?”

One thing Babcock didn’t do, however, was apologize. Not to the players who have said he was too hard on them. Not to the players who have said he played cruel mind games with them. Not to the players who said he demeaned staffers and others around the team. Not to the Columbus Blue Jackets, whom he coached for all of 11 offseason weeks in 2023 before resigning after reports surfaced of him invading players’ privacy by scrolling through the photos on their phones. Not to anybody.

Babcock, in what is now his third chance after being unceremoniously ousted in Toronto and Columbus, was polite but defiant, excited but vague. He said all the right things but offered no specifics. Sitting next to Oilers general manager Stan Bowman — who returned from his own banishment from the NHL from the Chicago Blackhawks’ sexual-assault scandal armed with a letter of recommendation from player-advocate Sheldon Kennedy citing years of behind-the-scenes work to better himself as a person and a manager — Babcock repeatedly said he’d grown, but didn’t say how he’d grown. Asked if the stories about his style are true, he said he didn’t read social media. Asked what happened in Columbus, he declined to offer any details. He was introspective, but only superficially. There was recognition, but little contrition.

“A lot of times, being hard was confused with telling the truth,” Babcock said. “Sometimes the truth is hard for them. No matter what happens when you coach, when you scratch people, when you sit them out, when they’re at the end of their career and you don’t play them, it’s hard for them, for sure. You try to do that as respectfully as you can. Why? Because you think you’re a good human being and that’s the right thing to do. Sometimes, it’s not perceived that way. … You’re allowed to grow as a human being. You’re allowed to get better. I think that’s what this league is all about.”

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Asked directly about what happened in Columbus and why he chose to resign, Babcock was particularly vague, implying it was a bad fit, not the fallout from his scrolling through players’ phones, that prompted him to leave.

“It was very evident before the year started — I hadn’t benched anybody, I hadn’t talked to anybody, I hadn’t sat anybody out,” he said. “And it was evident that we weren’t together as a staff from the get-go. My wife gave me a call and she said it’s time to get out of there. I had been retired, I was pretty good at it, I got back to being retired.”

The hiring of Babcock — who won the Stanley Cup with the Red Wings in 2008 and has been to the Final two other times, but who hasn’t coached in the NHL since flaming out with the Maple Leafs a little more than halfway into an eight-year contract in 2019 — is the latest controversial move by the Oilers, who are hell-bent on winning the Stanley Cup during their possibly limited time with Connor McDavid, who got the clock ticking when he signed just a two-year contract extension last year. Whether it’s Evander Kane, Bowman, Corey Perry or Babcock, Edmonton has shown it’s willing to touch any third rail if it can help bring a championship to the city.

Asked if the Oilers don’t care what people think about them, Bowman demurred.

“I look at it a little bit differently,” he said. “We certainly do care about the people that we work with every day. It matters that the people we interact with have good experiences. That’s important to me and I’ve communicated that to Mike and (new assistant coach D.J. Smith) and the whole staff here. There’s been progress in sports over the last 10-15 years. Positive progress.

“There’s a trust level that’s important here, that I need to trust Mike that he’s going to operate that way and he needs to trust me that we’re going to do the same thing with everyone we interact with. It’s important what we do from this point forward. I understand the questions that you’re asking; there’s going to be people wondering. You can’t change the past, and what matters is our actions. I mean, our words matter as well. But I think everyone here who’s skeptical, they want to see what actually happens and how we interact with our players. That matters to me. We’ve had great conversations — very open, clear, explicit — about what we expect. There’s nothing wrong with holding players accountable for their performance, but also doing it in a way that’s respectful. That’s what we expect here. I’m excited about where we’re headed.”

Babcock repeatedly referred to a “fun” and probing conversation he had with McDavid, Leon Draisaitl and Zach Hyman during the hiring process. Those players felt they needed a new voice after two calmer, more player-friendly coaches in Jay Woodcroft and Kris Knoblauch. They want to be coached hard, want to be pushed.

But what of the players with less job security, players with smaller roles, younger players? Can Babcock, who’s been out of the league for nearly seven years, connect with and coach Gen Z athletes? Will his style, however blunted by age and humbled by scandal, play in the modern, ever-changing NHL? Much of the reporting on Babcock’s past centers on players at the bottom of the lineup, not the top.

Asked directly about this, Babcock took issue with the premise of the question.

“It’s interesting you say that,” he said. “I’m harder on the best guys, by far, than on the guys trying to survive every day, but if you’re going to have success — and all you have to do is watch what happened in this year’s playoffs — everybody on that team’s got to be important, right down to the guys that don’t play every single night. And the more depth you create and the more they feel important, the better chance you have to have success. I actually heard everything you said (but) I believe the opposite. I believe we’re going to empower all those players, and they’re going to love it as much as anybody.”

Connor Murphy and Jason Dickinson, trade-deadline pickups who are each returning on a five-year contract, were the first players to be asked about Babcock during their video call with reporters on Monday. Dickinson said it was an “exciting” possibility, and Murphy said this was a “veteran team” that’s ready for anything.