Mike Babcock didn’t spend much time sugarcoating the Oilers’ 7-2 loss to the Maple Leafs. His message was blunt from the start: Toronto set the tone, and Edmonton never matched it.
“They played harder, longer, faster than we did… Better defensively. Better offensively. Just better.”
That was the clearest snapshot of the night, but Babcock’s postgame session dug into the bigger issue he saw with his team. He pointed to a lack of production from the bottom six, said the Leafs’ depth was better, and insisted Edmonton simply wasn’t competitive enough.
“You play a team that gets goals from the likes of Lettieri, MacEwen, and Stecher. You aren’t getting much from anyone underneath your first line and your power play. You need more, so how are you going to get it?”
Babcock’s answer came with little hesitation.
“Yeah, we need more for sure. I think any time when guys are away and they come back, they’re probably not as good. And I thought that probably affected Nuge a little bit tonight, but their bottom six was better than ours.
“But the bottom line is they were better than us. They were more competitive than us.
They were quicker than us. They were better.
We can blame anybody we want as a group. As a coach, Jim Hiller had his group playing harder than I had my group, so that’s on me.”
He was asked again about the bottom six after the game, especially after making lineup changes.
“I just think the big thing is obviously we feel fortunate to have got Nuge back, and Hyms back. If you look at our lineup, we got three guys back that we didn’t have a week ago. But we also have played way stronger teams this last little bit than we’d played at the start, and so just goes to show you, when you play against real good players, the NHL is a hard league, and obviously that’s exposing us.
“But if you look at our whole group, we weren’t good enough, so to blame the bottom-six forwards tonight would be unfair, I think.”
Babcock also said he didn’t like what he saw in the neutral zone and singled out a few players who he thought brought the right energy.
“I didn’t like anything about tonight. I thought Formenton played hard.
I thought Hyman played hard. I thought Murphy played hard.
I thought Shea and Bouch… We didn’t have enough guys. If you’re going through the list and you’re talking about a few guys, that’s not enough guys.”
When asked about Murphy’s fight and whether someone else might need to step in to provide a spark, Babcock brushed that aside.
“That’s not my department. No, I just put the guys on the ice.
The bottom line is… I mean, you watch the game. It was frustrating for you, never mind the fans or players.
But you’re frustrated because you didn’t get prepared good enough and work hard enough. Who’s that on?
That’s on us.”
Even with a strong record, Babcock acknowledged the quality of play has slipped at times, though he pushed back hard on the idea that this is becoming a pattern.
“It’s interesting you say that. I loved our last game.
I thought it was great. We played a really good team, and I thought we were ultra competitive.
I thought they took over at times. I thought we took over at times.
And my hope for today was we were going to match that level of compete and then raise it. We didn’t do any of that, so that’s a step back.
But to say that we haven’t played hard or that this is a trend-I don’t buy any of that crap. But tonight wasn’t good enough.
Period.”
So where does he go from here?
“This is what I’m going to do. I’m going to go home, and I’m going to get a good night’s sleep, and then I’m going to get up tomorrow, and I’m going to think about that.
But for me, getting all wound up here right now-I mean, I already stood there. In your own building on a Saturday night, that should be automatic.
Should never get outworked for it.”
Babcock closed with a final nod to Toronto’s effort and Edmonton’s shortcomings.
“I thought we were going to be, right? We weren’t.
But give them credit. They got ready.
They came in here. They’re on a road trip.
They got prepared, and they played harder and longer and faster than we did. Better defensively.
Better offensively. Just better.”
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