The NHL cleared Mike Babcock on Thursday. The Edmonton Oilers are expected to formally begin contract talks early next week while fans, analysts, agents and former players are trying to figure out how to feel about all of it.
Paul Bissonnette spent parts of nine NHL seasons as a fourth-liner and enforcer. On a recent episode of 100 Hockey, he walked through what actually concerns him about the hire and his worry centers less on how Babcock handles the franchise players and more on how he manages the rest of the room.
Babcock has a well-documented history of friction with players outside the top of the lineup. His tenure in Toronto ended in a firing in 2019, followed by a wave of player accounts describing a difficult locker room environment. His brief time in Columbus in 2023 ended before he coached a single game after reports surfaced that he had asked players to hand over their phones so he could scroll through them.
The NHL opened an investigation at the NHLPA's request, and while the league cleared him to coach again this week, the players' union said in a statement that it found his conduct "very concerning." Biz, for his part, has been thinking about what a Babcock return actually looks like from the perspective of someone lower in the lineup.
Babcock has a history of mistreating depth players
"What the hell is Mike Babcock going to say to Leon and Connor?" he said. "He's going to glaze them every day. They show up to the rink."
That part, he gets. Superstars get treated like superstars. But Biz has seen enough of hockey culture to know the locker room isn't just two guys.
"It's the other guys on the team and the energy that he's creating around the rink," he said, "that has been the problem in the past."
Biz was upfront that he has no axe to grind with Babcock personally, and framed his concern around a specific pattern of behavior that tends to surface with role players and younger guys.
"I have no personal vendetta against Mike Babcock," he said. "If he coaches again, I don't give a s—."
What he does care about is the phone thing, the incident that triggered the NHL's investigation in the first place when Babcock resigned from Columbus in 2023.
"What I give a s— about is if he's going to be like calling a third liner and saying, open up your phone, I want to see what you're up to with your spare time. I want to look through your text messages, see if you're texting your buddies about me and what your perception is of me, or whatever other reason he's grabbing these guys' phone. Do you guys agree that's a weirdo move? The phone thing is silly."
Biz put it in pretty relatable terms. "I don't let my wife see my phone. That's a very private thing."
From there, he moved to what he thinks the phone incident actually reflects. A coaching style built on authority and compliance rather than collective buy-in. He pointed to what seemed to work in Edmonton during their deep playoff runs, and specifically to what players said about Rod Brind'Amour's Hurricanes when they won.
"What's the word that kept coming up? Respect. They respect each other because they're a team together. They work together. It's a collective thing. And I think that's more of the approach that these guys need to have moving forward."
Biz acknowledged those things matter at the NHL level. His point was about how old-school coaches tend to enforce them.
"Discipline and accountability, those are all things that these kids should know when they get to the NHL level. And if you have to enforce it a little bit more, yeah, that's fine. But it's more about the way that some of these old school coaches, specifically Babcock, approach them."
He offered an example. A friend of his, Sean O'Connor, was a fringe player who got a shot at an NHL preseason game during a lockout. He was on the bench taping a stick before puck drop when Babcock walked out.
"Pretty cool, eh?" Babcock said.
O'Connor told him yeah, this is awesome.
"Well, don't get used to it," Babcock replied. "You won't be here very long." And then he walked back down the tunnel.
Biz allowed it might be dry humor. But he kept coming back to what that moment would have felt like for a young player about to play one of the biggest games of his life.
"Maybe that's a dry humor that, I don't know if that's something a young guy who's trying to crack an NHL roster needs to hear from the coach. Maybe he has a laugh with the coaches in the coaches' room. But just think about how that guy felt going into that game."
"If that's a story I'm hearing, along with the Tyson Berry story, along with these other stories, what else is going on? It reminds me of Keenan, way back when. A lot of those little mind games," he added.
The Oilers are going to hire Babcock. The league has cleared the way. Veterans including McDavid and Zach Hyman are reportedly on board. The question is what the environment looks like for the rest of the roster.
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