Wings, Babcock (and wife) hope to reach decision on his future soon
DETROIT -- As season-ending hangovers go, Thursday was a bad one for Red Wings coach Mike Babcock.
"There's a 24-hour rule in my house for sulking, and I used all 24 hours," Babcock said Friday after posing with his players for the official team photo -- possibly for the last time in his decade-long tenure in Hockeytown.
"The worst day I've had coaching in Detroit, period, in my 10 years here was yesterday, bar none," he said. "Was that because I thought in my heart we were going to win that series (with Tampa Bay) and that we should still be playing? Or was it because of what's coming? I don't know the answer to that."
What's coming for Mike Babcock is one of the more fascinating storylines in the National Hockey League -- one that will keep the Red Wings in the news every bit as much as the eight other teams still competing for the Stanley Cup. And it'll be that way until he either re-signs a lucrative, long-term contract with the team or decides to move on.
"I look at Mike as an unrestricted free agent in the prime of his career," general manager Ken Holland said, adding repeatedly and in no uncertain terms that he is dedicated to keeping his coach in Detroit and that money won't be an issue. "We've had many other people in that situation before, and many of them we kept."
And anybody who's seen the way Mike and Marian Ilitch run their sports operations in this town know that they're willing to pay for quality -- whether it's on the field of their Tigers, the ice of their Red Wings, or the coaching and managing sides of the operations.
At the start of the season, the Wings offered Babcock a multi-year deal at $3.25 million a year, which would make him the highest-paid coach in the league. Bidding, if it gets to that, likely would take him north of $4 million a season and could go much higher with big-market clubs like Toronto and Philadelphia in need of a difference-making coach.
Although the Wings hold exclusive negotiating rights on Babcock through June 30, both he and Holland hope to resolve the issue much sooner. But first, Babcock said, he needs to speak to his boss.
"Everyone thinks Ken Holland is my boss, but actually it's my wife," Babcock said, adding that he spoke with her about it for the first time on Thursday.
"That conversation didn't go very well," he said. "It didn't last that long."
Why not?
"It got heated up pretty quick," he said.
So where does his wife stand on the issue?
"You'd have to bring her down here and ask her that yourself," he said to a throng of about 35 media people on hand for the annual locker-cleanout day.
He just needs a few days, Babcock said. Friday was busy for him. He left Joe Louis Arena immediately after addressing reporters and drove to Ann Arbor to attend the graduation of his daughter from the University of Michigan. Saturday he has another family commitment.
Babcock and Holland could begin their conversation in earnest on Sunday, when they drive to Grand Rapids and back for Game 5 of the Calder Cup playoff series between the Griffins and Toronto -- if there is a Game 5. Grand Rapids, which lost the first two games in Toronto, needs to win Game 4 Saturday to push the best-of-five series to the limit.
"I think some of you think there's this grandiose plan. There's been no plan," said Babcock, adding that he's put all his energy into getting his team into the playoffs and trying to win a series against the heavily favored Lightning. He also said he's rather bemused at how people profess to know how he might be leaning based on their interpretations of what he says.
"What I find is that every time I speak now, everybody tries to read into what I said. I wouldn't read anything into it because there's nothing there," he said. "I don't even know myself, and if you think I'm trying to snow you, I'm not. I don't have any idea. I'm going to go through it in a logical manner and make a decision."
Meantime, his players chose their words carefully Friday when asked about their coach. Although most said they'd be grateful to have him back, no one was predicting one way or the other whether he would return.
"We've been together a lot of years, as coach and as team, and we've done a lot of good things together," said captain Henrik Zetterberg, who's as frustrated as anyone that his team has been bounced from the playoffs in the first round in three of the last four springs. "We've come up short here lately, and none of us are happy about that."
