Elliotte Friedman doesn’t see Mark Messier’s comments on Mike Babcock as some earth-shaking shot across the bow of the Edmonton Oilers. If anything, his read is that the whole thing is a lot more layered - and a lot less dramatic - than it first looked.
On the Fan Hockey Show, Friedman said there’s an obvious irony to Messier questioning how much influence players had in Babcock’s hiring. Messier, after all, was one of the early figures in the league to have that kind of pull himself.
Friedman pointed back to Messier helping push the Canucks toward hiring Mike Keenan as coach, and suggested he likely had a hand in personnel decisions after that as well. That’s why, in Friedman’s view, the criticism lands a little oddly coming from him.
Still, Friedman doesn’t believe any of it changes much for Edmonton. By now, he said, the Oilers have already heard every possible opinion on the subject.
Messier’s remarks came just as the team was getting ready to drop the puck and begin the season, so Friedman thinks reality has already settled in around the organization. In his eyes, this isn’t the kind of thing that shakes a team off its footing.
The more interesting question, Friedman said, is why Messier spoke up at all when he did. He noted that he ran into Messier in New York recently and found him to be in a great mood, which made the timing seem less like a simmering public grievance and more like a natural media exchange.
Friedman also looked back at the ESPN call where the comments surfaced and said it appeared to be a follow-up after Mark Spector had already been asked about the topic. From Friedman’s perspective, it wasn’t some premeditated takedown.
It just grew out of the conversation.
What Friedman thinks really sits underneath the comments is something simpler and more personal. Messier said there were people he respected who “weren’t treated very well” by Babcock, and Friedman believes that’s the heart of it.
To him, this wasn’t mainly about player empowerment or the politics of how Babcock got hired. It was Messier sticking up for people he knows and cares about who had bad experiences with the coach.
Friedman was clear that plenty of criticism of Messier, Babcock and the process itself is fair. But he sees the personal loyalty piece as the part that actually drove the comments. And in his view, Messier probably wouldn’t have gone there at all if he hadn’t been asked directly.
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