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09/08/2006Babcock aims to change 'sour ending'Wings ousted early in playoffs after a dominating year
Mike Babcock enters his second season as the coach of the Detroit Red Wings. TRAVERSE CITY — Mike Babcock knows it's not how you start, it's how you finish. In his first season behind the bench in Detroit, Babcock led the Red Wings to the President's Trophy — 58 wins, 124 points — but that was overshadowed by the team's first-round exit in the Stanley Cup playoffs. "The measuring stick for us is (how we do) at playoff time," Babcock said. "That was a real sour ending. "We were the fifth best team of all-time last season during the regular season. We were good offensively, good defensively. It seemed we were able to play any (type of) game. But we were unable to score and unable to keep it out at playoff time — and we got beat by a better team at playoff time in Edmonton. We have to address those things (that went awry)." Babcock is in Traverse City for today's start of the eight-team Prospects Tournament at Centre ICE. On Thursday, he touched on a number of other topics. • On replacing Manny Legace in goal with Dominik Hasek "Manny did a real good job for us last year. We had a great regular season, but in the end we didn't accomplish what we set out to do. So there's always going to be changes. Dominik Hasek has been one of the best goalies in the National Hockey League for a long time. But in his last two campaigns, he's been unable to finish the year with his team. He signed a contract with us that puts a lot of the onus on him — he's got to play. We're optimistic his health can hold up. If can play, he's very good. With Ozzie (Chris Osgood), who won 20 games for us last year, Dominik doesn't have to play every game." • On the addition of defenseman Danny Markov: "When we lost (Jiri) Fischer and (Niklas) Kronwall early last year that was a huge blow. I don't think we realized how big a blow until playoff time. Markov is a physical guy, plays the game hard, and is a competitor. We think he fits in real well in our top four, whether he plays with (Mathieu) Schneider, (Nicklas) Lidstrom or Kronwall. That gives us a good back end. Plus, (Brett) Lebda and (Andreas) Lilja played well for us last year, and obviously we still have Cheli (Chris Chelios). That's a nice six deep." • On the departure of Brendan Shanahan: "Obviously, he made a decision that he felt was best for his family and himself. We've got to wish him luck. We would have liked him back, but he decided to go elsewhere. So now someone else gets an opportunity. That's how the world works. "It will be hard to replace his 40 goals, but we have some younger guys who will get an opportunity to play. And being on Pavel's (Datsyuk) line is not a bad situation. We think our team will be quicker than it's been. We'd like to continue to be a puck possession team, but also built into our arsenal, if that's taken away, we want to be able to put it in (the zone) and go get it." • On Steve Yzerman's retirement: "Obviously, we lose a lot of leadership, but we think we have guys who have been around Stevie long enough who can hopefully fill that void — Lidstrom, (Kris) Draper, Chelios, (Henrik) Zetterberg, Datsyuk, Lang and Schneider. "We'll miss Stevie's passion for the game, too. He was able to will Detroit to three Stanley Cups. Who's going to will us to the next one?" • On who he expects will elevate their games: "Datsyuk and Zetterberg really took a step last year, and we expect them to take another step. People can say all they want about (Datsyuk) not scoring in the playoffs, but he was hurt and didn't play at the start. He's a dominant player. We're not concerned about that at all. He's a great hockey player and competitor. He and Zetterberg give us an unbelievable one-two combination." • On the team's young players in the prospects camp: "It's tough to play on our big team. Hopefully, these guys are another year closer. They'll have to earn their stripes, though. We don't bring them (to Detroit) to develop. We bring them when they're ready to help us win."
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