Those who know Babcock will tell you that the man who is now the richest coach in the game has long considered NHL coaches underpaid compared to their counterparts in other pro sports.
“I know it was always in his craw. He used to tell me the Detroit Pistons coach was making twice as much as he did,” Scotty Bowman was saying here on Thursday. “He knows the work you have to put in to be a coach.”
Babcock left the Red Wings for an eight-year, $50 million offer from the Toronto Maple Leafs. That’d be an incredibly lucrative deal for an NBA head coach.