DETROIT — With a brand new season of NHL hockey on the horizon, the Red Wings have started to shuffle back from their homes all over the world, and into their Michigan residences to ready themselves for training camp. It was somewhat of a big offseason, not only for the Red Wings with the departure of Mike Babcock, and the addition of Jeff Blashill, Mike Green, and Brad Richards – But for captain Henrik Zetterberg, as he and his wife Emma had their first child.
Oddly enough, even with the birth of Zetterberg’s son, named Love (pronounced loo-vee), Captain Hank had some interesting things to say about former head coach Mike Babcock and his decision to leave the Red Wings for the Toronto Maple Leafs:
“There’s a lot of guys in here who’ve been through the same stuff for many years,” Zetterberg said Thursday. “I think now with the additions of Green and Richards, and the new coach, it’s given us a little fresh start. Obviously, it’s going to be a different voice behind the bench and sometimes you need that.”
Zetterberg clearly felt it was time for a change after 10 years under the hard-driving, abrasive Mike Babcock.
“I want to thank Mike for the time he had here, but I think both him and us probably decided it was time,” Zetterberg said.
Source: MLive
Not that it should be any surprise, as there has been a growing trend of Red Wings players stating their displeasure with Babcock’s way of coaching, but it’s obvious that not only the youth, but the veterans agree that it was time for a new regime.
Take from this what you choose, but this tweet gives me the bubble-guts:
<blockquote class=”twitter-tweet” lang=”en”><p lang=”en” dir=”ltr”>Man oh man the Red Wings had better not pull a Dave Lewis on their newest player friendly coach who replaced a notorious hardass</p>— Winging It In Motown (@wingingitmotown) <a href=”https://twitter.com/wingingitmotown/status/639555296801636352″>September 3, 2015</a></blockquote> <script async src=”//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js” charset=”utf-8″></script>
Damn you, JJ.
