Sault Ste. Marie is somewhat of a familiar place for Toronto Maple Leafs Coach Mike Babcock.
In town this weekend for the 2016 Team Jacobs Canadian Tire Jumpstart Charity Golf Classic, Babcock made a return to an area he used to frequent growing up.
Born in Manitouwadge, ON, Babcock’s family left the area when he was young before eventually settling in Saskatoon, but not before spending some time in the far north in Tungsten, NWT.
Babcock recalls his time spent in the area fondly.
“I used to come here to St. Joe’s Island as a kid,” Babcock said. “My grandparents lived here at one time so it’s great to be here.”
The 53-year-old is coming off his first season in Toronto after spending 10 seasons with the Detroit Red Wings. Despite finishing with the NHL’s worst record, Babcock said there have been some positives to his first season with the franchise.
“The strides that have been made in the last twelve months have been fantastic,” Babcock said. “Our guys are all-in. That’s one thing about the guys is they’ve been absolutely fantastic. We have good leadership within our group and good young players coming. The guys feel good about themselves. It’s amazing when you feel good about yourself how much you can accomplish.”
The veteran bench boss wouldn’t set a firm timeline on the team getting back into the playoffs but did say the development of the team is “farther along than I expected.”
“The timeline is what the timeline is,” Babcock said. “I don’t know when we’re getting there. I just know we are. This has gone way better than I could have expected. We’re way farther along than I expected. In saying that, we’re going to have a bunch of young guys. We have some good, quality, veteran people to lead the way but we need our young guys to come of age. That takes some time.”
Babcock wouldn’t go as far to say the Maple Leafs would make the playoffs next season, but he expects an improvement.
“We feel that we’re going to be better than last year,” Babcock said. “We’re going to have much more talent on our team. We’re going to be young too so where that goes I don’t know. We’re sure going to be in the hunt (for a playoff spot). There’s nothing more exciting than being one-point in or one-point out for the last month going into the playoffs and see how we do.”
Babcock spoke highly of a pair of former members of the Soo Greyhounds staff in Kyle Dubas and Sheldon Keefe who are currently working in the Maple Leafs organization. Dubas is the Maple Leafs assistant general manager and Keefe serves as coach of the Marlies.
“It’s important the job that (Keefe) and Kyle have of running our farm team and developing prospects for us,” Babcock said. “The better job they do, the better coach I am.”
The team used the latter part of the season to bring up some players from the Marlies and Babcock credited some of the players called up for their play at the NHL level.
“They were really good. They had good skill and speed and yet they’re kids,” Babcock said. “If you have kids of your own, you know the variance in behavior can be drastic. We’re just going to keep teaching them and keep helping them develop and they’ll be real good players for us.”
The fan-base in Toronto is something that also impressed Babcock in his first season with the team.
“It’s without question the biggest fan-base I’ve ever been involved with and they’re passionate about their team,” Babcock said.
Babcock also addressed the so-called regular negativity from the Toronto media.
“That’s a joke. That’s just not the truth at all,” Babcock said. “Every guy in the media is a sports fan and they want you to do well. They’ve got a job to do. They’ve treated me first class. Our job (as a team) is to own it. When we play well, we get to go to the media and say we played well. When we play poor, we go to the media and say we played poor. Our job (as an organization) is to sell our franchise, to sell one another and support one another. We do that and you don’t have to worry about it much. “
“Some people are going to write good things and some bad,” Babcock added. “When you do good things, they write more good things.”