{"id":944486,"date":"2026-10-24T12:24:13","date_gmt":"2026-10-24T12:24:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/944486\/"},"modified":"2026-10-24T12:24:13","modified_gmt":"2026-10-24T12:24:13","slug":"win-today-how-babcocks-honest-day-by-day-approach-has-worked-for-oilers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/944486\/","title":{"rendered":"‘Win today’: How Babcock’s honest, day-by-day approach has worked for Oilers"},"content":{"rendered":"

EDMONTON \u2014\u00a0A month into the Mike Babcock era, we\u2019re still waiting for a more telling exchange than the one our Elliotte Friedman had with Leon Draisaitl<\/a> the day before training camp opened.<\/p>\n

Friedman:\u00a0\u201cWhat\u2019s the most honest thing Mike Babcock has said to you so far?\u201d<\/p>\n

Draisaitl:\u00a0\u201cI hate your changes.\u201d<\/p>\n

We\u2019ve all hated Draisaitl\u2019s line changes here in Edmonton \u2014\u00a0but only for about 12 seasons and 856 career NHL games. Yet, it\u2019s Babcock who watched some summer video and brought that back as his first take as Draisaitl\u2019s new coach.<\/p>\n

Blunt. To the point. And when it comes to things hockey related, usually right.<\/p>\n

That is what they told us we\u2019d be getting when the Oilers pulled Babcock out of coaching purgatory this summer, and so far, the advanced billing has been spot on.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s become a funny place over the years, Edmonton, where the level of deference to the top players has existed on a sliding scale with how good those top players are. No one\u2019s top players are as good as Edmonton\u2019s, and as such, at times they were allowed at times to run amok.<\/p>\n

A decade without a Stanley Cup provided grounds for reflection, however, and so Connor McDavid<\/a>, Draisaitl and Zach Hyman somewhat orchestrated the hiring of Babcock, pulling him out of enforced retirement for a job and a paycheck he certainly does not need.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou don’t need it, so why do you do it? Because they asked me,\u201d said Babcock. \u201cWhen those kids asked me, they want to win, and I think they should. So I’m going to try to help.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThose kids\u201d have stated plainly that they would be OK if they were held to the same level of accountability as every other player on the Edmonton roster. And that set the Bab-clock to ticking.<\/p>\n

When would the moment arrive that a defensively derelict Connor McDavid would sit out a shift? Or a Draisaitl turnover would be punished the only way a coach knows how?<\/p>\n

Whenever it was, the players promised they would be fine with it.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt is easy to say in June. It might be a little bit different when it’s November,\u201d McDavid admitted in a phone interview on June 24, the day after Babcock was hired. \u201cBut we’ve all agreed that this is what we want. This is what we’re looking for.<\/p>\n

\u201cI don’t plan on having that happen to me very much. But when it does, it’ll be deserved, and we’ll move forward, and we’ll learn from it,\u201d he said. \u201cIt’s time to have that happen in Edmonton. It\u2019s time.\u201d<\/p>\n

Today, everyone has a \u201cmost honest\u201d moment with Babcock. Or at least a theme they\u2019re sensing from the new coach, as he begins to get a sense of how their game rates.<\/p>\n

For Jake Walman it\u2019s, \u201cYou\u2019re too good a player to make that play.\u201d<\/p>\n

For Ryan Shea it\u2019s, \u201cDon\u2019t over-handle the puck at the offensive blue line.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cObviously we like to keep that stuff in house,\u201d he began. \u201cBut there have been times where it’s been it’s been me, and there have been times where it’s been Leo. And rightly so.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe’re trying to build a game that works not in October, but come April, May, and June. That\u2019s the focus. That’s what we’re striving to do.\u201d<\/p>\n

There are two points of view here. One from a team that has done everything except for The Big Thing, and another from a coach who refuses to look any further than the next game \u2014\u00a0which just happens to be against his old team, the Toronto Maple Leafs, on Saturday night.<\/p>\n

But this much is certain: everything that happens in Edmonton will be observed through the lens of, \u201cCan this kind of hockey win in June against a team like Florida?\u201d<\/p>\n

Yet, Babcock can\u2019t coach playoff rounds in October \u2014\u00a0where it must be said, his team takes an 8-1-1 record into its meeting with the Maple Leafs.<\/p>\n

\u201cI try to win today. So the individual meetings I had today, the practice we had today, the preparation for tomorrow, what I’m doing,\u201d Babcock said after Friday\u2019s practice. \u201cIf you think I’m worried about something that’s going to happen months from now, I’m not doing it. I’m just going to keep trying to get better and enjoy what I’m doing. I think I’m in a phenomenal situation.\u201d<\/p>\n

There have been signs of that the style of game Babcock hopes to install here is taking. But there have also been moments where the loose, easy-to-play-against Oilers have hopped over the boards instead.<\/p>\n

The emergence of the former, and the disappearance of the latter, will be the gauge that we check on a weekly basis throughout the season.<\/p>\n

\u201c(Thursday) night against a real team (Carolina), there were areas of our game that that got exposed a little bit. Things that we can improve on for sure,\u201d McDavid said. \u201cBut with that being said, I’ve liked a lot of things. Guys are being aggressive, competing and playing hard, and that’s all you can ask for at this time of year. So we’ll clean the stuff up as we go.\u201d<\/p>\n

There isn\u2019t much room for improvement, when you\u2019ve gone to Game 7 and Game 6 of two Stanley Cup Finals.<\/p>\n

But somehow, it feels like a chasm in Edmonton.<\/p>\n

One that they\u2019re paying Babcock to navigate.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"EDMONTON \u2014\u00a0A month into the Mike Babcock era, we\u2019re still waiting for a more telling exchange than the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":944487,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[433],"tags":[49,48,448,82],"class_list":["post-944486","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nhl","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-nhl","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/944486","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=944486"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/944486\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/944487"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=944486"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=944486"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=944486"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}