TSN’s Bob McKenzie reports that Mike Babcock, arguably the top coach in the NHL, has been granted permission by the Detroit Red Wings to gauge the interest of other teams in his services.

This is obviously an important development for the teams potentially making a coaching change this summer.

Babcock, should he become available, is obviously the top free agent coach on the market, the guy that every team looking to make a change would love to add. The problem has been that nobody was certain that he would be leaving the Red Wings, which meant that a club could potentially hold off on hiring him, lose out on the other top-end candidates (notably Todd McLellan) on the market and then find that they never had a shot at Babcock in the first place.

As McKenzie notes, today’s decision to allow Babcock to explore his options does not mean he’ll definitely leave Detroit, but it does give teams the chance to figure out what’s going on:

As strange as it is to say, Edmonton does kind of seem like the most obvious alternative to Detroit.

As has been well-documented over weeks of speculation, there are plenty of reasons for the Oilers to be attractive to any prospective coach. Connor McDavid is obviously at the top of the list with a bullet, but the promotion of Bob Nicholson to CEO and the hiring of Peter Chiarelli aren’t far behind on the list. In those two moves Edmonton added the most anticipated player to enter the league in the last decade and made the changes which promise the kind of competent and professional management the team has lacked for ages.

Add in an owner with lots of money and a track record of spending to the cap, a new arena which guarantees team stability and high-end facilities and a promising group of young non-McDavid players (including some bright and shiny new defencemen) and the Oilers are an incredibly compelling team. 

There are a million details to work out, and even if Babcock is interested he won’t come cheaply. In addition to the draft pick Detroit will get in exchange, the Oilers will be forced to sign a big, fat check and potentially hand over significant influence on the hockey operations side. 

The trade off is that Babcock is one of, if not the, top coach in hockey. Sometimes it just makes sense to pay for proven high-level ability. 

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