Mike Babcock reacts to facing Leafs for first time since firing and it's an unexpected approach
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Mike Babcock faces his old Maple Leafs for the first time as Oilers coach Saturday night, and he shrugged off the storyline with a classic Beatles joke.
Mike Babcock is about to coach against the team that fired him, and he doesn't sound rattled one bit.
The Edmonton Oilers head coach was asked about facing the Toronto Maple Leafs for the first time behind the Oilers bench, and he answered with a joke instead of a speech.
The two teams meet Saturday night at Rogers Place, with puck drop set for 7 p.m. ET.
"It's about a hundred years ago, right? So, you know, even the Beatles broke up. So you get on with it kind of thing."
- Mike Babcock
- Mike Babcock
Babcock treated the whole thing like ancient history.
He said it feels like a century ago and pointed to the Beatles, a band that split up and moved on, as proof that everybody eventually has to get on with life.
It was a loose, funny answer from a coach who knew exactly what the question was really about.
A long road back to the bench
Edmonton hired Babcock on June 23 after the NHL cleared him following a review of his short stint in Columbus in 2023.
He had not coached an NHL game in more than six years, and his last run behind a bench ended when Toronto fired him 23 games into the 2019-20 season.
He arrived ranked 12th all time with 700 regular season wins, and the Oilers are counting on that experience to help Connor McDavid and Leon Draisaitl chase a title.
Familiar faces on both benches
Toronto's coach has history with him too.
Jim Hiller was an assistant on Babcock's staff with the Maple Leafs from 2015 to 2019, and the Leafs named him head coach this summer to replace Craig Berube.
Edmonton also added D.J. Smith, another former Babcock assistant in Toronto, to its staff.
The rematch comes Nov. 14 in Toronto, so this storyline is not going away.
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