“He’s a really good coach. I’m sure a lot of teams want him.” — Jonathan Ericsson, Detroit Red Wings

And so it begins for real: Mike Babcock Watch.

With the Detroit Red Wings eliminated from the Stanley Cup Playoffs Wednesday night, soon-to-be-free-agent head coach Mike Babcock — the only coach with a membership to the Triple Gold Club (Olympic gold, Stanley Cup, world championships) — was in no mood to discuss the giant question mark surrounding his future, stating he’ll address it on the Red Wings’ locker cleanout day, which will be Friday.

“I’ll be happy to talk about any of that crap then,” Babcock said following his team’s 2-0 loss in Game 7 to Tampa Bay Wednesday. “I’m not talking about that now.”

But others are.

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What Babcock Did Say

Despite declining to get into that “crap,” Babcock’s commentary on the state of the Red Wings roster must not have instilled faith among Detroit fans hoping their coach will re-sign.

“Our team’s not as good as it was,” Babcock said. “No one even picks us to win in the playoffs.

“We are what we are,” he went on. “[The Lightning] have a young team. They were bad here for long enough that they were able to rebuild and get good young players, and young players at key positions.

“Three of our best players are 34 [Niklas Kronwall], 35 [Henrik Zetterberg] and 37 [Pavel Datsyuk]. So any way you look at it, we’re a team that’s changed a ton of players. We’re a team that’s added a lot of youth to our lineup, and right now on the outside they don’t pick us as a Stanley Cup contender.”

The coach saw positives in the strength of the developing players in AHL at Grand Rapids, but hinted that he wanted to coach all-stars at important positions.

“Who’s going to replace Pav? I don’t think [Datsyuk] is going anywhere right away, but that’s what you’ve got to do. You’ve got to have big-time players up the middle and on the back to be successful. So those are questions that our organization works towards. We’ve been drafting good, we’ve been developing good, but we’ve been winning too much [to land top draft picks]. That’s the facts.”

Gotta See It: Mike Babcock’s full post-Game 7 press conference



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