Detroit Red Wings bench boss Mike Babcock is not only interested in becoming the highest paid coach in the NHL; he's rumored to want to helm a winner to multiple championships as well. He wants to lead a perennial Cup contender into the fray, year after year, with a general manager and owner as unabashedly, vehemently committed to ultimate victory as he.
Whether or not that team and that GM and that owner is part of the Detroit Red Wings, remains to be seen. But until a final decision is made and the ink of his signature dries on a new contract, chatter will continue about where he could eventually end up.
TSN Hockey Insider Darren Dreger, while appearing on an episode of Edmonton's TSN 1260 and as transcribed by NicholsOnHockey.com, said that he believes the most likely avenue for a Babcock exit from the Motor City would involve him transferring to an already Cup-contending team seeking that final push to make it to the Promised Land.
"I think that's fair, but what you said is the most likely scenario for me, and that's a contending team that we view as a contending team that maybe loses out in the first or second round," Dreger said. "And ownership puts some heat on management to say, 'Alright, this guy is going to be available, obviously he hasn't signed yet. Let's take a hard run at him.'"
What team fits this bill? What team has the talent and the necessarily desperate desire to throw all of their considerable resources behind a move for Babcock?
How about Mario Lemieux, Sidney Crosby and the Pittsburgh Penguins?
"I know they've just hired a new coach. Mike Johnston is doing an excellent job there. How the Penguins are managing to get through their list of injuries, and now the mumps epidemic, and on and on it goes, is remarkable. And Johnston deserves and needs some credit for that. But he also signed a relatively short contract. And that's the type of team, I think, from the outside someone like Babcock might be thinking about," Dreger said.
Johnston, signed in the offseason to a three-year deal, has done admirably with a Pittsburgh squad facing injuries and illness, piloting them to a 20-6-4 record and first place in the Metro Division. But for a team as talented as the Penguins - a team that boasts Crosby, Evgeni Malkin, Patric Hornqvist, Chris Kunitz, Kris Letang and Marc Andre-Fleury - it would almost take a willful effort to keep them from producing and playing like a top team.
If Johnston is unable to take them to a Cup, even in this, his first season on the job and Babcock becomes available or even shows interest in a move to the Steel City, the Penguins would be forced to seriously consider such a proposition.
