Mike Babcock is a lightning rod of attention behind the Oilers’ bench

In the Edmonton Oilers’ first exhibition game, Connor McDavid and Leon Draisaitl found themselves yanked off of the ice, 15 seconds into their first shift, after Draisaitl turned over the puck deep in his own end.

It was an immediate reminder that the man behind the bench has clear expectations. The message for the two biggest stars of the team was that details matter. The message to the rest of the team was that they matter for everyone.

There is little doubt that Mike Babcock has been an extraordinarily successful coach over his lengthy career. There is also no doubt that controversy follows him and that his methods and judgment are now routinely questioned.

The Oilers hired him in June after he was interviewed by McDavid, Draisaitl and Zach Hyman, among other players, who sought a more hard-nosed approach behind the bench. As the curtain lifts on the 2026-27 season, there’s no doubt in what they’ll get from their coach.

It took a very specific set of circumstances for Babcock to resurface in the NHL with the Oilers.

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With two fruitless trips to the Stanley Cup final and this past year’s first-round flop, the clock is ticking on McDavid’s prime years. The two-year extension he signed with the Oilers last year demands results in itself.

A desperation from the front office and the team’s best player created the perfect storm to open the door to a coach with a reputation for both pushing players well past their comfort zones and for winning.

Heading into his 12th season in Edmonton, McDavid is playing for his seventh head coach. The face of the team and the front office have rolled the dice, hoping for the ultimate payoff.

As the NHL lockout was nearing its end in 2004, Brian Burke was appointed general manager of the Anaheim Mighty Ducks. Babcock had been the club’s head coach the two previous seasons. Burke decided to replace him with Randy Carlyle.

“I did not fire him,” Burke said. “I told him I had too much respect for him to do that and suggested that he should find his way to Detroit as quickly as possible.”

Babcock is the last of the tough, old-school coaches in the league. Burke, who was a GM of four National Hockey League teams and the president of hockey operations of two others, is of a similar vein.

In Burke’s role as a GM he has hired and fired multiple coaches and is curious how things will work out for the 63-year-old Babcock.

“It’s kind of a unique situation,” Burke said. “It wasn’t a standard hire. The players talked to him and invited him in. They asked for an authoritarian and now they got one. It’s a very difficult tightrope to walk.

“He has had a great career internationally and has a Stanley Cup ring. We’ll see how the last act of this play works out.”

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Mark Messier won five Stanley Cups over six years with the Oilers and is a member of the Hockey Hall of Fame.

His jaw dropped when the club hired Babcock.

“I am absolutely shocked they hired him,” Messier said last week on a video call arranged by ESPN. “I’m absolutely shocked from the stories that I heard from very good, reputable, character people about the way they were treated. It’s been no secret.

“I am just horrified about the whole thing, to be honest with you. I could go on and on and on, but I think you get my point.”

This is what the Oilers will face this season. They head into the year with the burden of having been called out by one of the organization’s greatest legends. There is no shortage of critics of this hire, and many are willing to share their opinions.

Prior to this year Babcock had coached in the NHL for three organizations over 17 years. He last coached in the league in 2019 with the Maple Leafs but was fired after a poor start. He was hired by the Columbus Blue Jackets during the summer of 2023 but resigned before he ever coached a game, following an investigation by the National Hockey League Players’ Association into allegations that he invaded team members’ privacy by asking to see photos on their phones.

The clubs he has coached have only missed the playoffs twice. He won the Stanley Cup with the Detroit Red Wings in 2008 and reached the final in 2003 with the Ducks and again in 2009 with the Red Wings.

Babcock has been involved in a number of incidents that raised controversy, loading him up with baggage for his arrival in Edmonton.

Chris Chelios, a Hall of Fame defenceman, said Babcock verbally assaulted Johan Franzen during a playoff series. Chelios and Franzen were teammates in Detroit under Babcock from 2005 to 2009.

At the end of the 2011 season in Detroit, Babcock scratched a healthy Mike Modano so the veteran forward would not reach the milestone of 1,500 games. Recently Daniel Winnik, a former Toronto forward, told TSN that he was bullied by Babcock in 2015-16 over an injury and that it made him hate hockey.

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As head coach of the Maple Leafs, Babcock embarrassed Mitch Marner as a rookie in 2016-17 by pressuring him to rank his teammates by work ethic and then shared those rankings with veterans. And then came the incident in Columbus.

“I was surprised that Babcock is back,” former NHL star Ray Ferraro, who was also on the video call with Messier, said. They share the duties of ESPN hockey panelists. “I’ve never heard – I’m pretty sure Mark would agree – of players interviewing the coach. I’ve never really heard that. But I guess they wanted to be comfortable with what they were proposing to bring in.

“I was quite surprised that he was the way that they went at this time. You don’t have a whole bunch of players jumping out and saying, ‘Hey, Mike is a great guy,’ that played for him in the past. They say he’s organized, he’s detailed, he’s direct. That’s what Edmonton is getting.”

Ken Holland hired Babcock as the Red Wings coach in 2005 and still thinks highly of him. With him at the helm, Detroit reached the postseason for 10 straight years, won a Stanley Cup and two Presidents’ Trophies for having the league’s best record.

“I have nothing but positive thoughts about my decade with Mike,” Holland, who is now the general manager of the Los Angeles Kings, said. “It was a wonderful 10 years. We did a lot of winning together.

“I can’t say I was surprised when [the Oilers] hired him.”

Holland said Babcock’s biggest strength is that he is detail oriented.

“His i’s were dotted and his t’s were always crossed. I see him as one of the best coaches in the National Hockey League,” Holland said.

“He pushed people to their limits and beyond their limits and I can’t say everyone likes him. But If you want to win, his resume is at the top of the list.”

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Babcock said he wasn’t really looking for work when Edmonton reached out to him during the off-season. He didn’t make a decision until after he had met with the team’s leaders.

“The leadership group set the message, not me,” Babcock said as training camp opened. “They told me what they want. Now it’s my job to make sure they get what they want. The star players want to be successful and I will do what I think is needed for them to be successful.”

McDavid didn’t fume over being pulled out so quickly in the exhibition game.

“He is going to coach the team as he sees fit,” he said. “That is what we asked for. The standard is high around here. It’s something I love and support. You have to be ready at all times. You have to be paying attention. If you miss a little detail here or there it matters.

“I don’t want to say we took things for granted but there was complacency. You go to the Stanley Cup final two years in a row and feel pretty good about your group and feel when it matters you are going to be able to to turn it on. But the league is too good and the teams are too good not to go through checkpoints. Guys here are already digging in hard.”

Messier remains dubious.

“The way he was onboarded through the players interviewing him is absolutely something that I’ve never heard of before. I think there has to be a separation of powers on the structural level of any team. I think from the management to the coaching to the players, there has to be a divide. The leadership group has to protect the players inside the dressing room.

“How can you do that when you’re directly involved with the decisions they’re making at the management level and hiring of the management and coaches? I don’t understand it. If things do go bad and players are having difficulties, who do they turn to? Because if they turn to the leadership, the leadership is management. There’s no separation there.”

Hyman, who played under Babcock in Toronto, responded to Messier’s comments this past Thursday.

“I think if he really wants to see what’s going on firsthand, he’s more than welcome to come here,” Hyman said. “I think Oilers fans love him. There’s a lot of excitement. There’s a lot of positivity here. Nothing but good is happening right now.

“So to try and spew something negative right now – I think it’s his opinion. Like I said, I have a lot of respect for him, and if he’d like to see what’s going on, he’s more than welcome to come down.”