Mr. Holland’s opus will begin at 7:30 p.m. Thursday and Mike Babcock will have a front row seat.

But before Peter Holland does anything against his former team, coach Babcock wanted to wish him well. A week after Holland was traded to the Arizona Coyotes, who visit the ACC Thursday. Babcock was ready for the inevitable question about Holland’s two-assist debut for his new team Tuesday in Detroit, a 4-1 win.



“Good for him. We’re playing them next, so I watched (Tuesday’s game). Holly was a good player for us, did lots of good things, it just didn’t work here for him. There’s lots of players in the league that when it doesn’t work in one situation, they go somewhere else and get a new opportunity.



“You want everyone to do well — period. When they move on, you’re not cheering against them, you’re cheering that they do well — except when they play you.”

Holland and Babcock never quite hit it off and the arrival ofAuston Matthewsand William Nylander, plus the return ofBen Smith, left no jobs at centre.



LIGHTEN UP LEAFS



Though much of Leaf business operates in hyper-secrecy, Babcock pulled out a dressing room whiteboard for the media Wednesday, one he had just shown his players, breaking down scoring chances for each team in the San Jose game. The Leafs led by two goals in the third period, circled the wagons too early, and lost in a 3-2 shootout.



“In the third, we had six around their net and 12 around ours. Any way you look at it, we were being more careful.



“Tight and tentative never got you anywhere in life. When you get in your car, you normally don’t put one foot on the brake and one on the gas. The long skinny one on the right, you just push that down and the car goes better.”



Matthews and the rest were left to ponder “parts of our game where we break down, kind of sit back too much. That’s something we’ll clean up.



“My thoughts haven’t changed since last night — it’s still pretty frustrating. The division is pretty tight and those are valuable points we’re leaving on the vine.”



ZACH WILL BE BACK



Zach Hyman was not at practice on Wednesday, but Babcock said it wasn’t for lack of trying. Despite pain from that rocket shot of Brent Burns that he took off a tender part of the knee, Hyman was ready to get into his gear until the medical staff overruled him.



Babcock expects that Hyman will play Thursday.



PEA SHOOTERS



The shootout, which has given Leafs coaches headaches for years, did them in again on Tuesday. Toronto has now lost four, the most in the league so far this season. “We could’ve come out and worked on it today, but we thought that would be a negative thing,” Babcock said doing breakaway drills. “So we have to find more time to work on it. Goalies face breakaways in games, shooters have breakaways and then suddenly it’s the shootout (and his players freeze). What we’re doing isn’t working and we have to fix it.”