Mike Babcock’s New Oilers Job Comes With Questions He Can’t Escape

Mike Babcock stood at a podium on Tuesday as the new head coach of the Edmonton Oilers and spent most of his time talking about a job he never actually coached.

It’s a weird spot to be in. Babcock was hired by the Blue Jackets in July 2023, resigned that September without coaching a game, and the reason was ugly: reports said he asked players to show him personal photos on their phones. Now he’s back behind an NHL bench, and reporters wanted to know if he crossed a line in Columbus.

Babcock says no. He pointed to his own exit as evidence, and he put the decision to leave on his wife.

“It was very evident before the year started…I hadn’t benched anybody, I hadn’t talked to anybody, I hadn’t sat anybody out, and it was evident that we weren’t together as a staff right from the get-go,” Babcock said. “My wife gave me a call, and she said it’s time to get out of there. I’ve been retired, I was pretty good at it. I got back to being retired.”

Pressed again on whether he went too far, Babcock leaned on the language of self-improvement. “No, to be honest with you, anytime you make anybody feel uncomfortable in your life, you should take a look at yourself, and you should say, ‘How could I do that better?’”

The league already cleared him once

When the Oilers started pursuing Babcock this month, the NHL Players’ Association asked the league to take another look at his Columbus tenure. The NHL did its review and cleared him on June 18. Babcock thanked both the league and the union for the full investigation. He said the Columbus situation just didn’t work out for either side, and that’s where he wants to leave it.

But the backdrop is heavier than that framing suggests. This isn’t just a bad fit. It’s a coach who was effectively run out of town before his first game because of how he treated players off the ice.

Why Edmonton is betting on this

The Oilers have real reasons to roll the dice. They lost the Stanley Cup Final in 2024 and 2025. Then they got bounced in the first round this spring. That got Kris Knoblauch fired. Connor McDavid has two years left on his contract, and the window isn’t getting wider.

Babcock says the locker room is behind him. The players will ultimately decide if that’s true. For now, Edmonton is betting that a coach with a Hall of Fame resume and a complicated recent history can get them over the hump. It’s a gamble either way.