Oilers hire Mike Babcock as head coach: Why they’re taking a chance on the controversial veteran

Mike Babcock coached the Red Wings to a Stanley Cup win in 2008 but has had ugly exits from the Maple Leafs and Blue Jackets. Kyle Robertson / Imagn Images

Mike Babcock will return to an NHL bench for the first time in almost seven years after being hired to be the next head coach of the Edmonton Oilers on Tuesday.

Babcock was effectively lured out of retirement by the chance to coach a team with serious Stanley Cup aspirations.

Babcock last coached NHL games in November of 2019 for the Toronto Maple Leafs. He was fired that season after a sputtering 9-10-4 start. Babcock was hired by the Columbus Blue Jackets in July of 2023 before resigning two months later after allegations surfaced on the “Spittin’ Chiclets” podcast that he asked players to share personal photos on their phones with him.

Earlier this month, the Oilers consulted with the NHL Players’ Association on a potential return for Babcock. The NHLPA asked the NHL to conduct an investigation into Babcock’s time with the Blue Jackets before approving him to coach again. That investigation was deemed complete Thursday, and Babcock was cleared to return.

The 63-year-old arrives in Edmonton at a time when the organization is thirsting for a Cup breakthrough. The Oilers were beaten by the Florida Panthers in both the 2024 and 2025 Cup finals before taking a step back this season, finishing with 93 points and being ousted in the first round by the Anaheim Ducks.

That resulted in former coach Kris Knoblauch being fired on May 14.

Babcock has previously coached three teams to the Stanley Cup Final, winning in 2008 with the Detroit Red Wings, and was behind the bench when Canada won gold at both the 2010 and 2014 Olympics.

Former Ottawa Senators and Los Angeles Kings coach D.J. Smith will be on Babcock’s staff as an associate coach. Smith was an assistant coach under Babcock with the Maple Leafs.

What went wrong in Columbus

Babcock was a controversial hire in Columbus when the Blue Jackets announced him as their coach on July 1, 2023. He didn’t end up coaching a game, running a practice or even making it to training camp.

He resigned on Sept. 16 — only 78 days later, and four days before camp was to begin — when Blue Jackets players threatened a revolt after it was learned that Babcock had scrolled through multiple players’ cellphones during one-on-one offseason meetings, perusing their pictures to learn more about their private lives.

Former NHL player Paul Bissonnette was the first to make these interactions public on the “Spittin’ Chiclets” podcast.

“Upon reflection, it has become clear that continuing as head coach of the Columbus Blue Jackets was going to be too much of a distraction,” Babcock said in a statement at the time.

The Blue Jackets, who would have fired him if he hadn’t resigned, reached a contract settlement with him and promoted Pascal Vincent on short notice to coach the season. — Portzline

What went wrong in Toronto

Babcock promised “pain” when Brendan Shanahan picked him to take over the Leafs bench on a massive eight-year contract in 2015. And he was right. There was pain. But it was also clear that he was having an immediate impact. The 2015-16 Leafs weren’t good or even designed to be good — they were the worst team in the league, in fact — but Babcock had them playing hard, competitive hockey every night.

The next season, with a dazzling trio of rookies — Auston Matthews, Mitch Marner and William Nylander — at the forefront, the Leafs took a major step. They not only reached the playoffs but gave the Presidents’ Trophy-winning Washington Capitals a scare in the first round. The Leafs became one of the NHL’s top teams in the next two years, with back-to-back 100-point seasons, but lost to the Boston Bruins in the first round in two seven-game series, highlighted by Nazem Kadri suspensions.

Something crucial happened along the way: The Leafs replaced Lou Lamoriello as general manager with Kyle Dubas in the spring of 2018. Suddenly, the ground underneath Babcock, who had been hired months before Lamoriello took over, was less secure.

Babcock stuck around for another full season, but his job security became fraught when the Leafs lost that second first-round series to the Bruins in 2019. A sluggish start that fall sealed his fate. Dubas fired him after 23 games.

In the aftermath of his exit, unflattering portrayals of his coaching methods surfaced, including with a young Marner. There is no doubt that Babcock was hard on his players in Toronto (and elsewhere) — too hard, perhaps. He could be overly blunt and lacking in sentiment and never appeared to care if he was liked. Babcock famously scratched Toronto native Jason Spezza in the opener of the 2019-20 season, in what would have been Spezza’s Leafs debut, for no apparent reason.

He got in his own way with stuff like that.

But he was also clearly a very good coach and might have succeeded in Toronto in spite of his brasher qualities with a longer runway — or a suspension-free playoffs from Kadri in either 2018 or 2019. Babcock is as detail-oriented as they come, with exacting routines and methods. His practices are fast and to the point. He doesn’t like to waste time. His teams are prepared to play. He is unafraid to buck consensus, for better and worse. For years, he insisted that Zach Hyman was a legitimately influential force and the right choice to play with Matthews amid market scrutiny. He was right on that one and wrong when he overplayed an aging Patrick Marleau in the playoffs.

Matthews, Marner and Nylander all grew as players under Babcock’s watch, and when Morgan Rielly was still young in the league, Babcock purposefully played him in difficult minutes so that he would eventually develop into a top-pairing defenseman.

Was it a good tenure? In some ways, yes. In other ways, no. The right word to describe it really is “complicated.” — Siegel

Why the Oilers are taking the chance