Babcock sending a message to three of his players?

On Monday Toronto Maples head coach Mike Babcock made headlines when he bumped forward Mitch Marner down to the fourth line during practice, presumably a response to his relatively slow start to the season.

However Jonas Siegel of the The Athletic believes that move by Babcock was carefully crafted to send a message to not one, but three of his forwards, the other two being Marner's linemates James van Riemsdyk and Tyler Bozak.

From Siegel:

In other words, this was just as much a prodding of James van Riemsdyk and Tyler Bozak as it was Marner. The threesome was dinged for two of the three goals against in the dicey overtime win against Montreal and has been hit for at least a goal against in every game but one so far.

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While that message was never explicitly stated by Babcock, Siegel points to comments the head coach made when speaking to the media after practice to support his belief.

“Let’s not read too much into this,” Babcock said as per Siegel. “Their line wasn’t going so tie goes to the veteran. How’s that? He just happens to be the kid on the line that’s it.”

It will be interesting to see where Babcock goes from here if the three aforementioned players continue to under perform in his estimation.