The signing of Mike Babcock by the Toronto Maple Leafs will have reverberations throughout the league that will affect all teams, including the Columbus Blue Jackets.
The first is the effect that his new salary will have on the rest of the league. It was thought of going into “Babwatch” that the coach was aware of how comparatively little NHL coaches are paid in contrast to their counterparts in the other “Big 4” sports. There is even an article from the Detroit Free Press that he had personal experience with being paid less than the Detroit Pistons coaches. The reports were that he thought this would be an opportunity to shift the future market for head coaches and he may have done it. Babock’s eight year deal worth $50 million or roughly $6.25 million a year makes him worth nearly twice as much as the next highest paid head coach. This is the first signal that teams like the Toronto Maple Leafs are working to take advantage of an area where the salary cap cannot restrict their ability to use their resources to compete, coaches.
In a league with a salary cap large income teams like the Maple Leafs can only put so much into competing to win on the ice. There is no salary cap though on coaches. Expect revenue rich teams to start trying to win the arms race with coaches. This will obviously affect the Blue Jackets in the future as it will cost more to either retain a successful coach or to bring in big name coaches as replacements whenever that is ever necessary. For a smaller market club like Columbus this is going to require wise decision making when it comes to coaching hires and retention.
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The second, and short term, way that this change will affect the Blue Jackets is that there is one less team competing for a playoff spot in the Eastern Conference over the next year or two. This would have probably been the case no matter who was coaching the Leafs but the multiple references that Mike Babcock made to the “pain” that is coming indicate that he is fully on board with the burn it all down rebuild plan for the Toronto Maple Leafs. Obviously in the head to head matchups the Maple Leafs will play hard but a team that is intentionally trying to rebuild will not be creating a hurdle in the standings.
It may be years before we fully understand the full ramifications of the Mike Babcock signing, but at least it should be interesting.