Jason Brough

People think it's the Columbus thing with looking at guys' phones so they can see pictures of their families and wives and girlfriends or whatever.

It goes way, way, way beyond that earlier.

You'll recall in Toronto, the now infamous Hey Mitch Marner, give me a list of the least hardest working players on the team.

Which he then used...

to tell the remainder of the team who Mitch thought were the least hardest working players on the team.

In the aftermath of his dismissal and ouster from Toronto, Brendan Shanahan, the then president of the club, even went so far as to say that Babcock had outdated and antiquated coaching methods that didn't work with the current generation of players.

If you want to go back even earlier, go back to Detroit.

Ask Johan Franzen about Mike Babcock's treatment of players.

He is a certain type of coach.

Now, I think the people that want this deal done in Edmonton had framed it as what?

The firmer hand on the rudder or on the wheel?

But that's code for a guy that's going to come in and is going to wreak havoc and is going to disrupt what many have seen as maybe a country club atmosphere under Nablok, who, for as cerebral a coach as he might have been, was very calm, very demure.

He was a very easygoing guy.

And I think...

They're looking for the polar opposite now.

Someone that's going to come in and maybe unleash psychological warfare on these guys in the hope that it stirs something up.

That's how desperate the Oilers are right now.

Yeah, I agree.

I believe there's a very strong connection between Babcock and Zach Hyman that I think maybe is a part of this.

Yeah, and I believe, if I'm not mistaken, the team that the Hyman family owns just hired Babcock's son in a role.