The Edmonton Oilers have reportedly hired a new coach, and Connor McDavid's reaction says it all.
The Babcock debate has reached Edmonton's fan base, and it dragged Connor McDavid into the middle of it.
A post from the account VisuallyBetter framed it as an accountability test. If McDavid signs off on hiring Mike Babcock and it goes terribly wrong, he should wear that outcome, not bail on the team.
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The poster's deeper point: McDavid has had a great amount of influence in creating this roster, so he doesn't get to walk away when the bill comes due.
Let's be clear about one thing first. There's no report linking Babcock to Edmonton. This is fan speculation, not news.
The Oilers' actual coaching pursuit, by every account, points at Bruce Cassidy on a long-term deal.
The full post is a thought experiment more than a scoop, but the principle underneath it is the part worth chewing on.
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Star players shape rosters, so should they share the blame?
Here's the real question buried in that tweet. When a franchise player carries this much weight, where does his responsibility actually end?
McDavid is the best player alive, fresh off a 138-point season with 48 goals in all 82 games. Stars like that don't just play. They influence who gets signed, who coaches, who stays.
That's the modern NHL. The captain's opinion matters in rooms most players never enter. With that influence comes a fair expectation of ownership.
But the accountability cuts both ways, and that's where the poster's logic gets shaky. General managers hire coaches. Stan Bowman makes that call, not the captain.
Pinning a bad hire on a player who offered input is like blaming a passenger for the driver's wrong turn. He may have suggested the route. He didn't grip the wheel.
Here's my read: McDavid absolutely should be accountable for his play and his leadership. Holding him hostage to a front-office decision is a different thing entirely.
And the bail-on-the-team fear is the loudest part of this. Every Edmonton conversation eventually circles back to whether McDavid stays long term. That anxiety colors everything.
The hypothetical may never happen. Cassidy may sign next week and bury the whole conversation.
But the underlying tension isn't going anywhere. The more a superstar shapes a franchise, the more its failures land on his doorstep, fairly or not.
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YESTERDAY
JUNE 6, 2026
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| G | A | PTS | ||
| Mitch Marner | 3 | 1 | 4 | |
| Tomas Hertl | 1 | 1 | 2 | |
| Jordan Staal | 1 | 1 | 2 | |
| Shea Theodore | 1 | 1 | 2 | |
| Sebastian Aho | - | 2 | 2 | |
| Brayden McNabb | - | 2 | 2 | |
| Taylor Hall | 1 | - | 1 | |
| Jordan Martinook | 1 | - | 1 | |
| Andrei Svechnikov | 1 | - | 1 | |
| Jackson Blake | - | 1 | 1 | |
| Jack Eichel | - | 1 | 1 | |
| Brett Howden | - | 1 | 1 | |
| Seth Jarvis | - | 1 | 1 | |
| William Karlsson | - | 1 | 1 | |
| Eric Robinson | - | 1 | 1 | |
| Jaccob Slavin | - | 1 | 1 | |
| Logan Stankoven | - | 1 | 1 | |
| Frederik Andersen | - | - | - | |
| Rasmus Andersson | - | - | - | |
| Ivan Barbashev | - | - | - | |
| COMPLETE STATS | ||||