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Why Mike Babcock is such a controversial choice for Edmonton Oilers

Preston Hodgkinson
Preston Hodgkinson
|
Jun 10 2026, 9:15 pm
Why Mike Babcock is such a controversial choice for Edmonton Oilers
John E. Sokolowski/Imagn Images

Edmonton Oilers fans have been getting a crash course on Mike Babcock this week.

The controversial figure is the front-runner to land the Oilers’ head coaching job, with Babcock reportedly getting approval all the way down from ownership to players. He is the guy that Edmonton wants behind the bench, but there are still some hurdles to clear.

The 63-year-old has a scandalous history, and the NHL will need to complete an investigation into the veteran coach before they allow the Oilers to bring him aboard.

Babcock has a long list of red flags that he has picked up during the 17 years he’s spent behind an NHL bench.

From bullying allegations in Detroit to a bizarre ongoing incident in Columbus, here are all the major scandals that Babcock has been involved in…

Developing Columbus incident

The most relevant scandal to Babcock right now is what happened while he was briefly the head coach of the Columbus Blue Jackets during the summer of 2023.

Before he coached a single game with Columbus, allegations surfaced that Babcock had asked to go through the phones of players.

When pressed, Babcock has said he only wanted to see photos of player families, and he had even offered to show photos of his own family in return. Some Blue Jackets, including captain Boone Jenner, told the NHLPA that nothing nefarious had happened, but younger players on the roster were reportedly uncomfortable with Babcock’s behaviour.

The NHLPA conducted an investigation and presented its findings to the Blue Jackets, where the organization decided there was no way Babcock could continue as head coach. He resigned before training camp.

That is what this current investigation was expected to explore, but new reports have suggested that there are new, unknown allegations involved as well.

The Marner ‘list’ fiasco

Before Columbus, Babcock spent five seasons coaching the Toronto Maple Leafs between 2015 and 2019.

He was eventually fired by the team in November 2019 after a slow start, and stories about his behaviour in Toronto quickly leaked afterwards.

The biggest scandal from his Leafs days came from a story in the Toronto Sun, which alleged that he mistreated then-rookie Mitch Marner during the 2016-17 season. It was said that Babcock ordered Marner to make a list ranking his teammates by work ethic.

Babcock then allegedly showed the list to the players that Marner ranked at the bottom. This caused a bit of an uproar with some Leafs players.

Toronto veteran Nazem Kadri later detailed the incident in his 2024 book, Dreamer.

“What a bullsh*t position to put a player in, let alone a rookie. It’s not as though Babs was asking a veteran who could push back and say, ‘F*** you, I’m not doing that.’ Mitch obliged, feeling pressured ā€” forced, really ā€” to do what Babs wanted,” Kadri wrote.

Babcock later revealed that he was trying to focus on work ethic with Marner, but admitted it was a bad idea and that he had apologized to Marner.

Beefing with NHL legends

During his reign with the Detroit Red Wings, Babcock had a few alleged run-ins with Mike Modano and Chris Chelios.

In Modano’s case, Babcock prevented the legendary American player from hitting an important milestone.

With two games left in the 2010-11 season, Modano was on tap to retire at the end of the year and was sitting with 1,498 NHL games under his belt. Instead of playing Modano for the last two games, Babcock scratched him in the second-last game of the season, leaving the Hall of Famer at 1,499 when he retired.

The longtime Dallas Stars legend revealed what Babcock said to him during the situation last year on the Spittin’ Chiclets podcast.

“He was like, ‘Mike, we didn’t bring you here to play 1,500 games. We brought you here to win a Cup,'” Modano said.

Chelios had to deal with a similar situation with Babcock. The Hall of Fame defenceman was set to play the 2009 Winter Classic in his hometown of Chicago in what would have been a memorable moment late into his career.

Babcock had Chelios start the game, but then benched him for the remainder of the game. It turns out that he allegedly wanted to healthy scratch Chelios, but was pressured by Detroit management to play him.

“He tried to healthy scratch me in the outdoor game in Wrigley Field against Chicago because he knew it was my hometown. Just things that were so unnecessary to show he’s the boss,” Chelios said on a 2019 episode of Spittin’ Chiclets.

Bullying allegations from ex-players

That isn’t the end of his alleged player mistreatment in his Detroit days.

An infamous example of this comes, again, from Chelios, who outlined an alleged incident where Babcock verbally assaulted ex-Red Wings forward Johan Franzen so badly that it caused the Swedish player to have a mental breakdown.

In 2018, Franzen tore into Babcock while speaking to a Swedish newspaper.

“He’s a terrible person, the worst I have ever met. He’s a bully who was attacking people. It could be a cleaner at the arena in Detroit or anybody. He would lay into people without any reason,” Franzen said.

Ex-Red Wings defenceman Mike Commodore recently ripped apart Babcock’s character while talking with Edmonton sports reporter Jason Gregor.

“I don’t want to hear another word from the NHL, the NHLPA, or the Oilers about how mental health is important to us,” Commodore said. “I’m sorry, but this guy gets off on warfare on his players.

“I’ve never denied he knows the game of hockey from a technical standpoint, but he is a bully. That is who he is. To say I’m disappointed would be putting it lightly.”

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