Under Babcock, Ducks Won’t Be Caught Napping

Coach Mike Babcock, the suspected insomniac, is bouncing around the Mighty Ducks’ dressing room like a pinball, with no fear of tilt.

The Ducks had just stunned the Detroit Red Wings in Game 2 of the Stanley Cup playoffs, which took their Game 1 victory out of the fluke bin.

Babcock darts left, then right, talking to reporters one minute, assistant coaches the next and mixing in a couple of impromptu player conferences in between.

It would be easy to frame this as playoff giddiness. But this is Babcock, 24 hours a day, seven days a week.

“I don’t think he sleeps,” team captain Paul Kariya said.

Who has time to rest, with the Ducks -- yes, the Mighty Ducks -- up 2-0 against the Red Wings in the first round of the Stanley Cup playoffs?

Babcock insists he doesn’t deserve the credit for this impossible season -- “I don’t shoot the puck for them” -- but a large portion can be put on his plate.

The Ducks face the Red Wings in Game 3 tonight at the Arrowhead Pond. They have bewildered a roster full of future Hall of Famers through two games, and Babcock’s handprints are all over the effort.

He has successfully manipulated game situations, getting the desired matchups -- through two games Steve Rucchin has shadowed the Red Wings’ Sergei Fedorov so closely they might as well carpool to games.

Babcock also has grounded his team. As soon as they reached the dressing room after a 3-2 victory Saturday, Babcock, always pushing, reminded them that the Red Wings had rallied from a 2-0 deficit in the first round last season.

Pavlov’s team spent the postgame reminding the media that the Red Wings lost the first two games last season. That is how it has been all season. Babcock rings the bell, the Ducks respond.

Sleep is for the off-season.

*

Babcock, who will turn 40 on April 29, may have made it to the NHL, but his mind is still firmly rooted in Saskatoon, Canada.

Mike Babcock Sr., his father, was a mining engineer in Canada who put in the up-before-dawn, home-after-dark career. Babcock watched, listened and, one day, asked the question.

“I said to my dad, ‘How how do you get all the guys to work?’ ” Babcock said. “He said, ‘You can never ask anyone else to work harder than you do.’ ”

A light bulb didn’t merely click, it exploded.

“I don’t ever want to be the guy who didn’t work hard enough,” Babcock said.

This was the injection of adrenaline the Ducks needed. The choice by General Manager Bryan Murray raised a few eyebrows and one question -- were the Disney-owned Ducks going cheap again? Yet the results have been rich with rewards.

Murray spent the summer wheeling and dealing, upgrading the Ducks’ talent. With Babcock, he had a coach who brought an eye-on-the-prize focus.

If there was any doubt that this season was going to be different, it was cleared up early in training camp. Babcock placed veterans German Titov, Jason York and Denny Lambert with the minor league team. All three were gone by the start of the season. Everyone got the message.

“He is going to tell you what he thinks, even if you don’t want to hear it,” goalie Jean-Sebastien Giguere said. “I don’t know if he sleeps ever. I don’t know if he can sleep. At the rink, he is never relaxed. He wants us to be that way too. When you relax too much, that’s when you start losing.”

Babcock is so intense, Giguere joked earlier this season, that he sweats through his sports coat during games.

“I think that is just rumor,” Giguere said, backpedaling with a smile. “He doesn’t sweat through his coat. The ice rinks are too cold for that. Maybe when we play in Florida.”

The Ducks had yet to work up any perspiration during another slow start, going 2-5-2 in their first nine games. Another season seemed off to a meandering start. Except, with Babcock holding the cattle prod, this wasn’t going to be the same-old, same-old.

“My wife says I’m going to have a heart attack,” Babcock said. “I tell her, ‘No I won’t. I don’t keep anything inside.’ ”

Although no player would reveal the details, Babcock didn’t keep anything inside after an embarrassing 5-2 loss to Toronto on Oct. 28. The Ducks went 4-1-1 in the next six games.

“When you leave for the day, you have given your best or you will hear about it,” Duck left wing Kevin Sawyer said.

That has been Babcock’s way, from Red Deer College to Lethbridge College to eight seasons in the Western Hockey League to two seasons at minor league Cincinnati.

Said Red Deer Athletic Director Allan Ferchuck: “We lost in the national championship game Mike’s first season and he was asked about finishing second. He said, ‘Second place [stinks].’ That was the headline the next day. It didn’t go over too big with some in the administration, but that’s Mike.”

Remaking himself to fit into his first NHL job was out of the question. If there were any square pegs -- Titov, York and Lambert? -- he was going to remain a round hole.

“If you don’t have any NHL experience, you better be who you are,” Babcock said.

*

Babcock is a coach, even when he’s not coaching.

At Red Deer, he taught an outdoor education class, which involved camping trips into the wilderness. On one journey, a student was suffering from hypothermia. Babcock sent off runners to find help and organized the rest of the class. The student was airlifted out and survived.

“I didn’t do anything; the kids did,” Babcock said. “All I did was give them some direction.”

Babcock talks the same way about the Ducks. He is skittish about taking any credit for the team’s success. Yet, he has given them direction.

“He brought discipline, enthusiasm and confidence to this team,” Murray said. “He was a first-year NHL coach, but there has to be a first time for everything.”

The coaching part has been easy. Babcock has confidence in himself that is deep-seated. The day-in, day-out media coverage, however, was new to him, and Babcock admits it is the hardest part of the job.

He dispenses cliches with the consistency of an automated operator -- press 1 for “This is the biggest game of the season,” press 2 for “We need to keep the foot on the gas,” press 3 for “We’re in a learning process”...

Yet, even those are delivered with energy.

“Players see how hard he works and that gets contagious,” Murray said.

An epidemic has broken out.

There is a reflection of Babcock in the way the Ducks play. That they didn’t collapse earlier in the season, as has happened the previous two seasons, was due in part to that. The Ducks also were able to survive a seven-game winless streak after the Christmas break that even had Babcock down.

“I phoned my dad and he said, ‘I hope you’re not moping around, feeling bad about yourself.’ ” Babcock said. “That’s how it is in my family. My mom used to say, ‘Allow 15 minutes of hanging your head, then get up and get on with it.’ That’s what this game is all about, being resilient.”

The Ducks ended the winless streak in Colorado, starting a 15-6-1-1 stretch before losing back-to-back games again. By then, they were firmly entrenched in a playoff spot.

“From Day 1, Mike has believed in us and we believed in him,” Kariya said. “With every win, we got more powerful.”

The energy source is obvious and easily replenished.

“I sleep,” Babcock said. “I just sleep fast.”