The Toronto Maple Leafs fired Mike Babcock on 20 November 2019 after a six-game winless run, and he resigned from the Columbus Blue Jackets on 17 September 2023 after 78 days on the job, without coaching a single regular-season game. He did not work in the NHL again for nearly seven years.
On 23 June 2026 the Edmonton Oilers made him their head coach. Five days earlier, the NHL had finished investigating him.
He will stand behind an NHL bench on 29 September for the first time in 2,505 days.
Why did the Maple Leafs fire Mike Babcock?
Because the team was losing and the roster had stopped responding to him.
Toronto hired Babcock on 20 May 2015 on an eight-year, $50 million contract — at the time the richest coaching deal in NHL history. He was fired four and a half seasons later, on 20 November 2019, with the Leafs 9-10-4 and winless in six (0-5-1). Sheldon Keefe was promoted from the Toronto Marlies to replace him.
His Toronto record was 173-133-45 in 351 games. In the playoffs, he went 8-12 with three straight first-round exits — Washington in 2017, Boston in 2018, Boston again in 2019. He never won a round in Toronto.
Club president Brendan Shanahan’s explanation at the time was flat: the team was “mistake-prone on defence” and “the attention to details aren’t there.”
What was the Mitch Marner list?
It is the incident that turned Babcock’s firing into something larger than a coaching change — and the two people at the center of it still describe it differently.
The story surfaced in the Toronto Sun on 25 November 2019, five days after Babcock was already gone. The reported version: during Mitch Marner’s rookie season in 2016-17, when Marner was 19, Babcock asked him to rank his teammates by work ethic from hardest-working to least—and then showed the list to the players at the bottom, reportedly including Tyler Bozak and Nazem Kadri.
Marner confirmed the story to TSN that November. He called it “surprising” that Babcock shared the list and said, “that was my first year, I didn’t really know what to think of it.”
Babcock has never denied that something happened or disputed that it was his fault. Speaking to Pierre LeBrun of The Athletic in January 2021, he called it a “major mistake”: “as soon as I did that, and he saw the list, I knew that I had made a major mistake.”
What Babcock disputes is the mechanism. His account is that he asked Marner to rank himself on work ethic in a private meeting, and later referenced that ranking in a separate conversation with Tyler Bozak — not that he circulated a list of the whole room. Marner’s own 2019 account supports the teammate-ranking version.
Both men agree he apologized at the time. The two accounts of what was actually on the list have never been reconciled.
Kyle Dubas, Toronto’s general manager from 2018, said in August 2025 that he knew nothing about it until he read the reports after the firing. Lou Lamoriello was the GM when it happened.
Why did Mike Babcock resign from Columbus?
Columbus hired Babcock on 1 July 2023 on a two-year deal. He resigned on 17 September, 78 days later, without coaching a regular-season game or opening training camp.
Paul Bissonnette made the allegation on the Spittin’ Chiclets podcast on 12 September 2023, citing an unnamed player. Bissonnette said Babcock had asked captain Boone Jenner to show him the photos on his phone, and that images had been projected onto a screen in a team meeting.
Every Blue Jackets player who spoke publicly contradicted that account. Jenner said Babcock “asked if I had pictures of my family, and I was happy to share some with him. He showed me pictures of his family.” Zach Werenski called the story “a non-issue” and said the screen-share function had not even worked in his meeting, so “we scrapped that part of it.”
Babcock’s own denial: “While meeting with our players and staff I asked them to share, off their phones, family pictures as part of the process of getting to know them better.”
And yet he resigned within five days. The NHLPA — not the league — interviewed Blue Jackets players and reported its findings to the NHL on 15 September. Those findings were never published. The only substantive public statement came from NHLPA executive director Marty Walsh, who said: “Our players deserve to be treated with respect in the workplace. Unfortunately, that was not the case in Columbus.”
Two days later, Babcock stepped down, saying continuing “was going to be too much of a distraction.” Pascal Vincent was promoted to replace him.
The gap at the center of the Columbus story was never explained: the players who spoke defended him, and the union’s own director said players had not been treated with respect. Nothing in the public record closes it.
Did the NHL clear Mike Babcock?
Not exactly, and the wording matters.
When it became clear in June 2026 that Edmonton wanted to hire him, the NHLPA formally asked the league to investigate first. The NHL’s investigation was run by executive vice-president and chief of security Jared Maples with a league lawyer, and with NHLPA representation present throughout.
It concluded on 18 June 2026. The league’s full statement reads:
“The League has completed its review of Mike Babcock’s tenure in Columbus, and of certain alleged conduct associated therewith. Our investigation has concluded that, even in a light least favorable to Mr. Babcock, there is no current basis to restrict his employment in the League.”
Read that again. It does not say the allegations were untrue. It says that even on the least favorable reading of the evidence, there is no basis to stop him working. That is a clearance to be employed, not a finding that nothing happened.
The NHLPA’s response was notably cool: the union said it “found the allegations of Mike Babcock’s conduct as the Columbus Blue Jackets’ head coach very concerning,” accepted the league’s decision, and added that it expects him to “uphold the high standards required of NHL head coaches.”
Commissioner Gary Bettman, speaking on 23 June: “We looked at what was alleged to have happened and drew our own conclusions as to what did and did not happen.” He added that the league expects “a certain level of decorum and conduct among all NHL personnel, especially head coaches.”
Why did the Oilers hire Mike Babcock?
Because they had run out of patience with a coach who had already taken them further than anyone else could.
Kris Knoblauch was fired on 14 May 2026 after three seasons, a 135-77-21 regular-season record and two consecutive Stanley Cup Final appearances — losing to Florida in Game 7 in 2024 and in Game 6 in 2025. The 2025-26 season ended with a first-round exit against Anaheim in six games.
General manager Stan Bowman said the room needed a different voice: “at this moment in time, I think we need something different… we were looking for somebody that clearly had experience and also had a winning pedigree.”
Babcock signed a two-year, $8 million contract as the 19th head coach in Oilers history, at 63. He met Connor McDavid, Leon Draisaitl and Zach Hyman before accepting. “When I knew I was going to get together with Connor, Leon and Zach, that was worth the drive,” he said. “It was very evident there was an alignment there.”
McDavid called him “the perfect fit.” Draisaitl was more direct about what had to be settled first: “As we all know, there’s history there, and I think we got that all off the table. We had an honest conversation about it and he was very honest about it.”
Hyman played four seasons under Babcock in Toronto and says he “set the foundation for us.”
One more thing about this hire has gone largely unremarked. The general manager who made it, Stan Bowman, resigned as Chicago’s GM in October 2021 after the independent investigation into how the Blackhawks handled Kyle Beach’s sexual assault allegations. Bowman was reinstated by the NHL in 2024 and hired by Edmonton that July. A general manager once removed over a player-welfare failure has hired a coach cleared in a player-welfare investigation.
Has Mike Babcock won a Stanley Cup?
One, with Detroit in 2008, beating Pittsburgh in six games.
He coached the Red Wings for ten seasons from 2005 to 2015, going 458-223-105, and reached the Final again in 2009, losing to the same Pittsburgh team. Before Detroit, he took Anaheim to the 2003 Final in his first NHL season.
Internationally, he is in a category of one. Babcock won Olympic gold with Canada in 2010 and 2014 and the World Championship in 2004, which on 28 February 2010 made him the only coach ever to complete the Triple Gold Club. The club itself is a players’ club — 30 men have done it as players — and he is listed separately as its only coaching member.
What is Mike Babcock’s career record?
700-418-183 in 1,301 regular-season games across 17 NHL seasons, which puts him 12th on the all-time wins list. In the playoffs he is 90-74 in 164 games, tenth all-time in postseason wins.
Note that the third number combines overtime losses and ties — he began coaching in Anaheim in 2002-03, before the shootout, when NHL games could still end level.
| Full name | Michael George Babcock |
| Age | 63 |
| Current role | Head coach, Edmonton Oilers (since 23 June 2026) |
| NHL teams coached | Anaheim 2002–04, Detroit 2005–15, Toronto 2015–19, Columbus 2023 (no games), Edmonton 2026– |
| Regular-season record | 700-418-183, 12th all-time in wins |
| Playoff record | 90-74, 10th all-time in wins |
| Stanley Cups | 1 (Detroit, 2008) |
| Olympic gold | 2010, 2014 |
| Distinction | Only coach in the Triple Gold Club |
